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Donor design and modification strategies of metal-free sensitizers for highly-efficient n-type dye-sensitized solar cells

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Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) cannot be developed without the research on sensitizers. As the key of light harvesting and electron generation, thousands of sensitizers have been designed for the application in DSSC devices. Among them, organic sensitizers have drawn a lot of attention because of the flexible molecular design, easy synthesis and good photovoltaic performance. Recently, new record photovoltaic conversion efficiencies of 11.5% for DSSCs with iodide electrolyte and 14.3% for DSSCs with cobalt electrolyte and co-sensitization have been achieved with organic sensitizers. Here we focus on the donor design and modification of organic sensitizers. Several useful strategies and corresponding typical examples are presented.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Institute of Fine Chemicals, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China

    Xiaoyu Zhang & Jianli Hua

  2. Laboratoire de Photoniques et Interfaces, Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Xiaoyu Zhang & Michael Grätzel

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  1. Xiaoyu Zhang
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  2. Michael Grätzel
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  3. Jianli Hua
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Correspondence to Jianli Hua.

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Xiaoyu Zhang received her Bachelor of Engineering with a major of Applied Chemistry in East China University of Science and Technology in 2011. Afterwards, she was specially recommended to a MS/PhD combined program and joined the research group of Prof. Jianli Hua at the Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Institute of Fine Chemicals in the same university. Currently, she is working in Prof. Micheal Grätzel’s research group at École Polytechique Fédérale de Lausanne with the scholarship provided by China Scholarship Council. Her research interest is focused on the application of organic sensitizers on the solid-state and liquid-state dye-sensitized solar cells.

Michael Grätzel, Professor of Physical Chemistry at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, he directs there the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces. He pioneered research in the field of energy and electron transfer reactions in mesoscopic systems and their exploitation for the generation of electricity and fuels from sunlight as well as the storage of electric power in lithium ion batteries. He is the inventor of dye sensitized solar cells that used for the first time 3-dimensional nanocrystalline junctions accomplishing very efficient harvesting of sunlight as well as photo-induced charge carrier separation and collection with near unity quantum yield. His research has engendered the advent of perovskite solar cells; one of the most exciting developments in the history of photovoltaics that have already reached over 20% solar to electric power conversion efficiencies. Author of several books and some 1100 publications that received over 165000 citations (Hfactor 185), he is one of the three most highly cited chemists in the world. His recent awards include the King Feisal International Science Prize, Samson Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation in Alternative Fuels, First Leigh-Ann Conn Prize in Renewable Energy, Albert Einstein World Award of Science, Marcel Benoist Prize, Paul Karrer Gold Medal, Millennium Technology Grand Prize, and the Balzan Prize. He graduated as Doctor of natural science (Dr.rer.nat.) from the Technical University of Berlin and received 10 honorary doctors degrees from Asian and European Universities. He is a member of the Swiss Chemical Society and the German Academy of Science (Leopoldina) as well as a Honorary member of the Israeli Chemical Society, the Bulgarian Academy of Science, the European Academy of Science and the Société Vaudoise de Sciences Naturelles. Recently, he was named Fellow of the Max Planck Society and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK).

Jianli Hua received her Ph.D. degree from Wuhan University in 2002 under the supervision of Prof. Jingui Qin. She conducted her postdoctoral research at East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST) in Prof. He Tian’s group in 2002–2004 and the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology in Prof. Ben Zhong Tang’s group in 2004–2005. Prof. Hua became a full professor in 2002 and work at ECUST now. Her current research interests include the development of new molecules and polymers with novel structures and electronic and optical properties.

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Zhang, X., Grätzel, M. & Hua, J. Donor design and modification strategies of metal-free sensitizers for highly-efficient n-type dye-sensitized solar cells. Front. Optoelectron. 9, 3–37 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12200-016-0563-x

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