International Journal of Energy Research, Vol.44, No.3, 1899-1908, 2020
Amine functionalized homoleptic ruthenium(II) sensitizer for dye-sensitized solar cells: A combined effect of ancillary ligands and co-sensitization
In this work, we propose a homoleptic ruthenium(II) complex, [Ru(dabpy)(3)]Cl-2 (RDAB3) containing amine functionalized electron donating anchoring units for DSSCs. The DSSCs were co-sensitized by coumarin-based thiophene (CT) and indole (CI) units. The presence of four ancillary amine groups in RDAB3 influences its photovoltaic performance and the introduction of coumarin-based co-sensitizers significantly enhances the efficiency. The fabricated DSSCs were explored by UV-Visible absorption, photocurrent-voltage assessments, and impedance spectral studies. Co-sensitized DSSCs showed an improved photovoltaic efficiency than the device sensitized by RDAB3 alone. Under optimized condition, the device made up of RDAB3+CI exhibited a high Jsc = 9.9 mA/cm(2) with Voc of 0.7 V, fill factor of 0.773, and solar to power conversion efficiency of 5.35% in standard global AM 1.5 solar irradiation. This performance is found to be higher than the DSSC sensitized with RDAB3 (eta = 3.84%) fabricated under same circumstances.
Keywords:amino anchoring;coumarin;co-sensitization;dye-sensitized solar cells;ruthenium complex;solar energy