Molecular Engineering of Organic Dyes with a Hole-Extending Donor Tail for Efficient All-Solid-State Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

We report a new concept for the design of metal-free organic dyes (OD5-OD9) with an extended donor-pi-acceptor (D-pi-A) molecular framework, in which the donor terminal unit is attached by a hole-extending side chain to retard back electron transfer and charge recombination; the pi-bridge component contains varied thiophene-based substituents to enhance the light-harvesting ability of the device. The best dye (OD9) has a D-A-pi-A configuration with the hexyloxyphenylthiophene (HPT) side chain as a hole-extension component and a benzothiadiazole (BTD) internal acceptor as a pi-extension component. The co-sensitization of OD9 with the new porphyrin dye LW24 enhanced the light-harvesting ability to 800 nm; thus, a power conversion efficiency 5.5% was achieved. Photoinduced absorption (PIA) and transient absorption spectral (TAS) techniques were applied to account for the observed trend of the open-circuit voltage (V-OC) of the devices. This work provides insights into the molecular design, photovoltaic performance, and kinetics of charge recombination.