Novel organic dyes containing N-bridged oligothiophene coplanar cores for dye-sensitized solar cells

•Three novel coplanar heteroarene-based dyes were synthesized for DSSCs.•The rigid backbones play crucial roles in basic properties and device performance.•The best PCE of 5.52% was achieved with the DSSCs based on EHTt.

Three novel organic dyes adopting fully-fused coplanar heteroarene as the donor moieties end-capped with two cyanoacrylic acids as acceptors and anchoring groups have been synthesized, characterized, and used as the sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The photophysical and electrochemical properties of the novel dyes and the characteristics of the DSSCs based on the novel organic dyes were investigated. The incorporation of the coplanar cores with electron-donating N-bridges are beneficial for the better intramolecular charge transfer (ICT), giving these new dyes good light-harvesting capability. The LUMO energy levels of these coplanar heteroacene-based dyes are sufficiently high for the efficient electron injection to TiO2 upon photo-excitation, while the suitable HOMOs allow the regeneration of oxidized dyes with the electrolyte redox (I−/I3−). The structural features of the coplanar cores (penta vs. hexa heteroarene) as well as the alkyl substitutions play crucial roles in governing the physical properties and device performance. Among these three novel organic sensitizers, the EHTt dye composed of a fully fused hexa-arene core and less bulky N-alkyl groups caused the DSSC to show the best photovoltaic performance with an open-circuit voltage (VOC) of 0.58 V, a short-circuit photocurrent density (JSC) of 13.72 mA/cm2, and a fill factor (FF) of 0.69, yielding an overall power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 5.52% under AM 1.5G solar irradiation.

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