Dye-sensitized solar cell mimics the principle of natural photosynthesis and is one of the gifted alternatives for the conversion of solar energy into electrical energy.1,2 As one of the key components in DSSCs, the photosensitizers have always attracted ever-growing attention. The versatility in the structural design of organic dyes and tunable absorption, high molar extinction coefficient, and electrochemical properties in the desired manner of these dyes made them particularly appealing.3 The basic architecture of an organic dyes is constituted by the electron-rich donor and electron-withdrawing acceptor linked via π–spacer. Herein, special attention has been paid to the design and synthesis and photo-physical, electrochemical and IV characterization of these dyes. The combined experimental and theoretical evaluation of the structure-property relationship for the efficient design of organic dyes with D-π-A, D-D-A, and D-D-π-A configuration has been carried out. The presentation consists of four working chapters focusing mainly on arylamine based dyes (carbazole, diphenylamine, phenothiazine and triphenylamine). The first chapter will be discussing three D-π-A configured dyes varying three different donors such as carbazole, diphenylamine and phenothiazine, and the best efficiency obtained was 4.2 % for carbazole based dye. The second chapter deals with the double donor (pyrene and carbazole) and acceptor linked via the single bond and double bond having D-D-A configuration, and the best performance was found to be 6.3 % for the double bond joint. The third chapter compares both D-D-A, and D-D-π-A architecture of imidazole fused aryl amine dyes. Along with the donors, three different π-spacers also studied to further improve the performance and the best efficiency improved to 8.26 %. Finally, Fourth chapter discusses the comparative computational studies of 4, 4’– dimethoxy triphenylamine organic dyes varying low band gap heterocyclic π-spacers. The findings provided valuable hints for the fast screening of π-spacers and efficient molecular engineering of organic dye sensitizers without sacrificing much resources and time.
References:-
1. O'regan, B. and Gratzel, M., 1991. A low-cost, high-efficiency solar cell based on dye-sensitized colloidal TiO 2 films. Nature, 353(6346), pp.737-740.
2. Mishra, A., Fischer, M.K. and Bauerle, P., 2009. Metal‐free organic dyes for dye‐sensitized solar cells: From structure: Property relationships to design rules. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 48(14), pp.2474-2499.
3. Devadiga, D., Selvakumar, M., Shetty, P., Sridhar Santosh, M., Chandrabose, R.S. and Karazhanov, S., Recent developments in metal‐free organic sensitizers derived from carbazole, triphenylamine, and phenothiazine for dye‐sensitized solar cells. International Journal of Energy Research.