Tunable, strongly-donating perylene photosensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells

Broadly absorbing perylene dyes bearing three-triarylamine groups were synthesized via Sonogashira coupling. The triarylamine moieties allowed further installation of electron donating ability, to enable tuning of the oxidation potential and optical band gap. With introducing more electron-donating groups into the three-triarylamine moieties the device performance was improved. The trend can be rationalized by the distribution of the electron density in the HOMO of the perylene moiety as well as the light-harvesting property of the perylene dyes.