Effects of physical orientation of dye molecules and molecular orbitals on performance of solid-state dye sensitized solar cells

P K D D P Pitigala; M M Henary; A G U Perera

doi:10.1016/j.matpr.2019.06.189

Effects of physical orientation of dye molecules and molecular orbitals on performance of solid-state dye sensitized solar cells

Mater Today Proc. 2020;23(Pt 1):43-48. doi: 10.1016/j.matpr.2019.06.189. Epub 2019 Jul 10.

Authors

P K D D P Pitigala^{1

2

3}, M M Henary⁴, A G U Perera³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Gangodavila, Sri Lanka.
² Center for Advance Material Research,, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka.
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Georgia State University, Atlanta GA.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Georgia State University, Atlanta GA.

Abstract

Performance of Dye-sensitized devices depends on the photon absorption and carrier injection properties of the sensitizer (dye). The orientation of the dye molecule affects the photon absorption cross-section, injection efficiency and carrier transport. These effects are studied, using three variants of cyanine dyes in n-TiO₂/Dye/p-CuSCN heterojunction. The results show correlation of dye-molecule's orientation on the short-circuit-photocurrent (I_sc). The open-circuit-voltage (V_oc) is also subjective. The orientation of the dye molecule influence the photon-harvesting efficiency and obstruct the hole-conductor penetrating onto the working-electrode. Additionally, Cumulative effects of e-e, e-h, spin-coupling and HOMO/LUMO distribution are identified.

Keywords: Cyanine dye; Dye solar cells; Molecular orbitals; molecule-orientation.

Grants and funding

R01 EB022230/EB/NIBIB NIH HHS/United States