A novel 2,7-diaminofluorene-based organic dye for a dye-sensitized solar cell

► A dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) was fabricated with a novel 2,7-Diaminofluorene-based organic dye (JD2). ► TiO2 film thickness, dye-soaking times, coadsorbate and additives in electrolytes are investigated for JD2-sensitized DSSCs. ► The optimized DSSC shows an efficiency of 6.31%, which is competitive to that of the D149-sensitized cell (7.01%). ► The incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency is much higher in shorter wavelength range of a JD2-sensitized DSSC. ► The longer electron lifetime of a JD2-sensitized DSSC is in consistency with its higher VOC.