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Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics
Published in:

16-06-2016

Organic dyes containing fluorenylidene functionalized phenothiazine donors as sensitizers for dye sensitized solar cells

Authors: Ankita Saini, K. R. Justin Thomas, Chun-Ting Li, Kuo-Chuan Ho

Published in: Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics | Issue 12/2016

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Abstract

Two new organic sensitizers featuring fluorenylidene decoration on the phenothiazine donor have been synthesized and characterized as sensitizers for nanocrystalline TiO2-based dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The dyes possess cyanoacrylic acid as acceptor/anchoring group and a conjugation pathway composed of fluorene and thiophene. Introduction of the fluorenylidene moiety on phenothiazine enhances the optical density of the dyes while the extension of conjugation by thiophene insertion red-shifts the absorption peak originating from the intramolecular charge transfer from phenothiazine to cyanoacrylic acid. The ground and excited state oxidation potentials of the fluorenylidene-containing dyes are upwardly shifted when compared to the parent dyes indicating a π-delocalized donor segment. The electronic properties were supported by density functional theoretical computations. Among the DSSCs fabricated, the dye (5a) having fluorene and thiophene in the spacer resulted higher power conversion efficiency (3.31 %) than the corresponding bithiophene analog (5b, 2.83 %) attributable to the relatively high electron life time and enhanced resistance for recombination in the former.
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Appendix
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Metadata
Title
Organic dyes containing fluorenylidene functionalized phenothiazine donors as sensitizers for dye sensitized solar cells
Authors
Ankita Saini
K. R. Justin Thomas
Chun-Ting Li
Kuo-Chuan Ho
Publication date
16-06-2016
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics / Issue 12/2016
Print ISSN: 0957-4522
Electronic ISSN: 1573-482X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-016-5146-5

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