Efficeincy improvement of triphenylamine-based organic dyes in DSSCs, an effects of linker moiety

Abstract

Triphenylamine-base organic dyes were designed and investigated for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The dye molecules consist of three parts, an electron-donor connected by the π- conjugated linker (benzene and thiophene) as an electron spacer and an acceptor/anchoring (cyanoacrylic acid). In this study, quantum chemical calculations were used to study the electronic properties, optical properties and density of electron in the linker of dye molecule by using the density functional theory. The results present that thiophene is the most appropriate to use as electron linker between triphenylamine donor and acrylic acceptor due to the wide of absorption band and π-conjugate bond effect on exhibiting red-shifted absorption spectra. © (2013) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.