Benzo[a]carbazole-Based Donor-π-Acceptor Type Organic Dyes for Highly Efficient Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

A novel class of metal-free organic dyes based on benzo[a]carbazole have been designed, synthesized, and used in dye-sensitized solar cells for the first time. These types of dyes consisted of a cyanoacrylic acid moiety as the electron acceptor/anchoring group and different electron-rich spacers such as thiophene (JY21), furan (JY22), and oligothiophene (JY23) as the pi-linkers. The photophysical, electrochemical, and photovoltaic properties, as well as theoretical calculations of these dyes were investigated. The photovoltaic performances of these dyes were found to be highly relevant to the pi-conjugated linkers. In particular, dye JY23 exhibited a broad IPCE response with a photocurrent signal up to about 740 nm covering the most region of the UV-visible light. A DSSC based on JY23 showed the best photovoltaic performance with a J(sc) of 14.8 mA cm(-2), a V-oc of 744 mV, and a FF of 0.68, achieving a power conversion efficiency of 7.54% under standard AM 1.5 G irradiation.