The improvement of photovoltaic performance of quinoline-based dye-sensitized solar cells by modification of the auxiliary acceptors

Abstract Three new dyes containing diphenylamine as electron donor, benzene (BIM1), benzothiadiazole (BTD) (BIM2) and N-ethylhexylbenzotriazole (BTZ) (BIM3) as auxiliary electron acceptors, quinoline as π-bridge and cyanoacrylic acid as anchoring group were synthesized in D-A-π-A structure for use in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The optical, electrochemical, theoretical and photovoltaic methods were performed to understand the auxiliary acceptor influence on the performance of these dyes. Compared to the other dyes, the DSSC with dye BIM3 slightly increases the open circuit voltage (Voc) owing to the retardation of charge recombination by BTZ. However, replacement of benzene or BTZ by BTD unit causes a large red shift of the absorption spectra, leading BIM2 cell to produce the highest short circuit current density (Jsc). Thus, among the three D − A−π−A dyes, BIM2 is determined to be the most efficient dye, which reached a Voc of 0.627 V and Jsc of 11.53 mA cm–2, corresponding to an overall power conversion efficiency of 5.21% in the presence of chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA) as the coadsorbent. These results suggest that the insertion of benzothiadiazole as auxiliary acceptor into quinoline-based D − A−π−A dyes can effectively improve photovoltaic performance of DSSCs.