Novel Carbazole-Phenothiazine Dyads for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells: A Combined Experimental and Theoretical Study

Marotta, G. and Reddy, M A. and Singh, S.P. and Islam, A. and Han , L. and De Angelis, F. and Pastore, M. and Chandrasekharam, M. (2013) Novel Carbazole-Phenothiazine Dyads for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells: A Combined Experimental and Theoretical Study. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 5 (19). pp. 9635-9647. ISSN 1944-8244

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Abstract

We report a joint experimental and computational work on new organic donor–acceptor dye sensitizers in which a carbazole (CZ) and a phenothiazine (PTZ) units are linked together by an alkyl C6H13, while two different anchoring groups are employed: the cyanoacrylic acid (CS1A, CSORG1) and the rhodanine-3-acetic acid (CS4A, CSORG4). The CZ moiety has multiple roles of (i) acting as an extra-electron donor portion, providing more electron density on the PTZ; (ii) suppressing the back-electron transfer from TiO2 to the electrolyte by forming a compact insulating dye layer; (iii) modulating dye aggregation on the semiconductor surface; and (iv) acting as an antenna, collecting photons and, through long-range energy transfer, redirecting the captured energy to the dye sensitizer. We show that the introduction of the CZ donor remarkably enhances the photovoltaic performances of the rhodanine-based dye, compared to the corresponding simple PTZ dye, with more than a two-fold increase in the overall efficiencies, while it does not bring beneficial effects in the case of the cyanoacrylic-based sensitizer. Based on quantum mechanical calculations and experimental measurements, we show that, in addition to a favored long-range energy transfer, which increases the light absorption in the blue region of the spectrum, the presence of the CZ unit in the CSORG4 dye effectively induces a beneficial aggregation pattern on the semiconductor surface, yielding a broadened and red-shifted light absorption, accounting for the two-fold increase in the generated photocurrent.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Aggregation; carbazole; DFT; DSSC; FRET; organic dyes; phenothiazine
Subjects:	500 Scienze naturali e Matematica > 540 Chimica e scienze connesse
Depositing User:	Francesca Cavazzini
Date Deposited:	09 Apr 2014 07:35
Last Modified:	09 Apr 2014 07:35
URI:	http://eprints.bice.rm.cnr.it/id/eprint/8664

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