Thiophene-Implanted Coplanar Sensitizer for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

A new dye material having a thiophene-introduced ladder-type phenylene structure as a spacer was synthesized through simple routes for application in dye sensitized solar cell. In visible spectrum range, absorption onset point of this dye is reached up to almost 600 nm, which is much higher value than ladder-type pentaphenylene dye, and estimated optical band gap is 2.08 eV. The power conversion efficiency (η) of the device based on this dye is 1.8 % and IPCE spectrum shows 37.5 % of the maximum value at around 475 nm. These results are comparable to those of dyes based on ladder-type phenylene having long bridges and consisting of only benzene ring, which have been reported so far.