Highly efficient dye-sensitized solar cells using phenothiazine derivative organic dyes

Two novel organic dyes have been synthesized using electron rich phenothiazine as electron donors and oligothiophene vinylene as conjugation spacers. The two dyes (2E)-2-cyano-3-(5-(5-((E)-2-(10-(2-ethylhexyl)-10H-phenothiazin-7-yl)vinyl)thiophen-2-yl)thiophen-2-yl)acrylic acid (PTZ-1) and (2E)-3-(5-(5-(4,5-bis((E)-2-(10-(2-ethylhexyl)-10H-phenothiazin-3-yl)vinyl)thiophen-2-yl)thiophen-2-yl)thiophen-2-yl)-2-cyanoacrylic acid (PTZ-2) were fully characterized and employed in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) to explore the effect of disubstituted donors on photovoltaic (PV) performance. The solar cells sensitized by the PTZ1 dye have a high IPCE plateau of 80% and achieve a short-circuit photocurrent density of 12.98 mA/cm(2), an open-circuit voltage of 0.713 V, and a fill factor (ff) of 66.6%, corresponding to a conversion efficiency of 6.17% under AM 1.5 100 mW/cm(2) illumination. The different performance of the solar cells based on the two dyes can be understood from the studies of the electron kinetics by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). These investigations reveal that disubstituted donors in the organic sensitizers of three or more conjugation units deteriorate the PV performance due to enhanced recombination. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.