Silicon-bridged triphenylamine-based organic dyes for efficient dye-sensitised solar cells
By Lyons, Ciaran; Dev, Pratibha; Maji, Pathik; Rathi, Neelima; Surolia, Praveen K.; Byrne, Owen; Xiao, Xinxin; English, Niall J.; Magner, Edmond; MacElroy, J. M. D.; Thampi, K. Ravindranathan
Published in Solar Energy
2018
Abstract
Three dyes based on a triphenylamine (TPA) moiety using a silicon bridge have been synthesised, namely CL-1D, CL-OMe and CL-SiMe. Structural benefits of long alkyl chains and electron donor group on photo conversion efficiency (PCE) of dye sensitized solar cells is discussed. A previously synthesised dye, denoted CL-1, which contained long alkyl chains and exhibited an efficiency of 6.90%, was compared with CL-SiMe, which contained shorter alkyl chains and showed and efficiency of 3.41%. A large drop in Jsc and Voc was found to be the reason for the appreciable decline in efficiency for CL-SiMe vis-