- Dithiafulvenyl unit as a new donor for high-efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells: synthesis and demonstration of a family of metal-free organic sensitizers.
Dithiafulvenyl unit as a new donor for high-efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells: synthesis and demonstration of a family of metal-free organic sensitizers.
Organic letters (2012-04-14)
Kunpeng Guo, Keyou Yan, Xiaoqing Lu, Yongcai Qiu, Zhike Liu, Jianwei Sun, Feng Yan, Wenyue Guo, Shihe Yang
PMID22497498
ABSTRACT
This work identifies the dithiafulvenyl unit as an excellent electron donor for constructing D-π-A-type metal-free organic sensitizers of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). Synthesized and tested are three sensitizers all with this donor and a cyanoacrylic acid acceptor but differing in the phenyl (DTF-C1), biphenyl (DTF-C2), and phenyl-thiopheneyl-phenyl π-bridges (DTF-C3). Devices based on these dyes exhibit a dramatically improved performance with the increasing π-bridge length, culminating with DTF-C3 in η = 8.29% under standard global AM 1.5 illumination.