Porphyrin-decorated polypyridines for dye sensitized solar cells

Edwin Constable^a, Alexandra Wiesler^a, Frederik Malzner^a, Catherine Housecroft^a, Angelo Lanzilotto^a

^aUniversity of Basel, Spitalstrasse, 51, Basel, Switzerland

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
Proceedings of International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics 2015 (HOPV15)

Roma, Italy, 2015 May 11th - 13th

Organizer: Filippo De Angelis

Poster, Angelo Lanzilotto, 339
Publication date: 5th February 2015

The presented work focuses on the synthesis of new organic ligands and their metal complexes for application as sensitizers in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). Although a wide range of such complexes exists, a major problem still has to be overcome: the inefficient absorption in the range covered by sunlight. Most dyes can only partially absorb the visible light, depending on their structure. In general they mostly absorb in the UV region with high extinction coefficients and absorb less effectively in the visible range. Aromatic rings, unsaturated substituents and conjugated structures provide ligand centered transitions in the UV, while complexation to a metal ion adds, for example, a metal to ligand charge transfer band (MLCT), typically in the visible. Our group focuses on the application of copper(I) polypyridine complexes as dyes. Specifically the dye is assembled in a stepwise procedure, so that the titania surface itself becomes a “ligand”, a covalently bound part of the complex. A so-called anchoring ligand first adsorbs to the surface and the anchor is a polypyridine containing an acidic functionality. The functionalized surface is then dipped in a solution containing a source of Cu(I), which coordinates to the anchoring ligand. Eventually by dipping in a solution containing a second polypyridine ligand, the "surface-as-complex" is completed, resulting in a light-harvesting surface. The adsorbed dye is exploited for electron injection into the semiconductor. My research fits in this context as I am developing porphyrin-based polypyridine dyes. The well-known light-harvesting ability of tetraphenylporphyrin coupled with the MLCT of copper(I) complexes has been investigated. This work will report new ligands, the electronic properties of which can be easily tuned according to the metal cation to which it complexes. By using mixtures of complexes in a dye, it should be possible improve the photoresponse of the dye, ensuring absorption of photons over the largest energy range possible.

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