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Dye-sensitized solar cells with 13% efficiency achieved through the molecular engineering of porphyrin sensitizers | Nature Chemistry
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Dye-sensitized solar cells with 13% efficiency achieved through the molecular engineering of porphyrin sensitizers

Nature Chemistry volume 6, pages 242–247 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cells have gained widespread attention in recent years because of their low production costs, ease of fabrication and tunable optical properties, such as colour and transparency. Here, we report a molecularly engineered porphyrin dye, coded SM315, which features the prototypical structure of a donor–π-bridge–acceptor and both maximizes electrolyte compatibility and improves light-harvesting properties. Linear-response, time-dependent density functional theory was used to investigate the perturbations in the electronic structure that lead to improved light harvesting. Using SM315 with the cobalt(II/III) redox shuttle resulted in dye-sensitized solar cells that exhibit a high open-circuit voltage VOC of 0.91 V, short-circuit current density JSC of 18.1 mA cm–2, fill factor of 0.78 and a power conversion efficiency of 13%.

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Figure 1: Structures of the two dyes used in the study.
Figure 2: Absorption spectra of the dyes studied.
Figure 3: Contour plots of selected KS orbitals for the dyes studied.
Figure 4: Photovoltaic performance of devices made with SM371 and SM315.
Figure 5: Transient photocurrent and photovoltage measurements carried out on devices made with SM315 and SM371.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results received funding from Solvay Fluor GmbH, the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement ‘ENERGY-261920, ESCORT’ and SSSTC (Sino-Swiss Science and Technology Cooperation), and the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement no. 246124 of the SANS project. M.G. thanks the European Research Council (ERC) for supporting part of this work under the advanced research grant (no. 247404) MESOLIGHT. A.Y. acknowledges the Balzan Foundation for support as part of the Balzan prize awarded to M.G. in 2009. M.K.N. acknowledges the World Class University programme, Photovoltaic Materials, Department of Material Chemistry, Korea University, Chungnam, 339-700, Korea, funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology through the National Research Foundation of Korea (no. R31-2008-000-10035-0).

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  1. Simon Mathew and Aswani Yella: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces (LPI), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, CH-1015, Switzerland

    Simon Mathew, Aswani Yella, Peng Gao, Robin Humphry-Baker, Md. Khaja Nazeeruddin & Michael Grätzel

  2. Laboratory of Computational Chemistry and Biochemistry (LCBC), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, CH-1015, Switzerland

    Basile F. E. Curchod, Negar Ashari-Astani, Ivano Tavernelli & Ursula Rothlisberger

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Contributions

A.Y. and S.M. proposed the research. S.M. synthesized and characterized the dyes with assistance from P.G. A.Y. fabricated and optimized the DSCs and conducted all the photovoltaic characterization. Electrochemical characterization was performed by P.G. R.H.B performed photo-physical characterization and assisted in interpreting the results with assistance from A.Y. and M.G. R.H.B designed the instruments and contributed to interpreting the results. B.F.E.C. and N.A.A. performed the computational characterization, with I.T. and U.R. contributing to the analysis and interpretation of the results. M.K.N. is responsible for overseeing the sensitizer project. M.G. directed the scientific research for this work and assumed all correspondence with the editor and reviewers. S.M. and M.G. prepared the manuscript, with invaluable contributions from A.Y., R.H.B., M.K.N., B.F.E.C., N.A.A., I.T. and U.R.

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Correspondence to Michael Grätzel.

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Mathew, S., Yella, A., Gao, P. et al. Dye-sensitized solar cells with 13% efficiency achieved through the molecular engineering of porphyrin sensitizers. Nature Chem 6, 242–247 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1861

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