Issue 33, 2011

Molecular design and synthesis of ruthenium(ii) sensitizers for highly efficient dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

We synthesized hydrophobic ruthenium(II) sensitizers (SY-04 and SY-05) with high molar extinction coefficient by extending the π-conjugation of 3,4- or 3-alkylthiophene-substituted bipyridine ligands. Both dyes displayed a remarkably high molar extinction coefficient of 21.7 × 103 M−1 cm−1 arising from red-shift of their metal-to-ligand charge transfer band when compared to a commonly used N3 sensitizer. The solar-to-electrical energy conversion efficiency (η) of the SY-04 based dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) was 7.70%, which is 27% higher than that (6.05%) of the N3-based DSC under the same cell fabrication conditions. The increased η was attributed to the increase in life time and recombination half-life measured by electrochemical impedance and transition absorption spectroscopy, respectively. Density functional theory and time-dependent density functional theory calculations of two dyes in both gas phase and solution were performed. The calculated values of the highest occupied and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals and absorption spectra are in good agreement with the experimental results.

Graphical abstract: Molecular design and synthesis of ruthenium(ii) sensitizers for highly efficient dye-sensitized solar cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
22 Apr 2011
Accepted
08 Jun 2011
First published
15 Jul 2011

J. Mater. Chem., 2011,21, 12389-12397

Molecular design and synthesis of ruthenium(II) sensitizers for highly efficient dye-sensitized solar cells

A. Anthonysamy, Y. Lee, B. Karunagaran, V. Ganapathy, S.-W. Rhee, S. Karthikeyan, K. S. Kim, M. J. Ko, N.-G. Park, M.-J. Ju and J. K. Kim, J. Mater. Chem., 2011, 21, 12389 DOI: 10.1039/C1JM11760B

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