Designing Squaraines to Control Charge Injection and Recombination Processes in NiO-based Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Langmar O, Saccone D, Amat A, Fantacci S, Viscardi G, Barolo C, Costa RD, Guldi DM (2017)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2017

Journal

ChemSusChem Wiley

Book Volume: 10

Pages Range: 2385-2393

Journal Issue: 11

DOI: 10.1002/cssc.201700152

Abstract

Herein, the synthesis of a new family of squaraines (SQs) and their application in p-type dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is presented. In particular, two sets of SQs were designed featuring either two or four anchoring carboxylic groups combined with either oxygen or dicyanovinyl central groups. The SQs were characterized by using a joint theoretical, photophysical, and electrochemical approach. Importantly, the presence of different central groups forces a frozen cis (dicyanovinyl group) or a trans (oxygen group) SQ conformation. Based on the latter, the current work enables a direct comparison between cis and trans isomers as well as the impact of a different number of anchors. Considering their electron-accepting and light-harvesting character, they were tested in NiO-based DSSCs. Photocurrent-voltage, incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements were performed. By virtue of their different symmetry, stereochemistry, and number of carboxylic groups, altered adsorption behavior onto NiO electrodes as well as diverse charge injection and charge recombination dynamics were noted under operation conditions. SQs with four linkers in a frozen cis isomerism show the best charge collection properties among the investigated SQs, providing a valuable guideline for the molecular design of future SQs for p-type DSSCs. In addition, we assembled tandem DSSCs featuring SQ/NiO photocathodes and N719/TiO2 photoanodes. The IPCE of the resulting tandem DSSCs implies light harvesting throughout most of the visible part of the solar spectrum owing to the complementary absorption features of SQ and N719.

Authors with CRIS profile

Oliver Langmar Lehrstuhl für Physikalische Chemie I Rubén Dario Costa Riquelme Lehrstuhl für Physikalische Chemie I Dirk Michael Guldi Lehrstuhl für Physikalische Chemie I

Additional Organisation(s)

Exzellenz-Cluster Engineering of Advanced Materials

Involved external institutions

University of Turin / Università degli Studi di Torino (UNITO) IT Italy (IT) Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) / National Research Council of Italy IT Italy (IT)

How to cite

APA:

Langmar, O., Saccone, D., Amat, A., Fantacci, S., Viscardi, G., Barolo, C.,... Guldi, D.M. (2017). Designing Squaraines to Control Charge Injection and Recombination Processes in NiO-based Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells. ChemSusChem, 10(11), 2385-2393. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cssc.201700152

MLA:

Langmar, Oliver, et al. "Designing Squaraines to Control Charge Injection and Recombination Processes in NiO-based Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells." ChemSusChem 10.11 (2017): 2385-2393.

BibTeX: Download