Quantum-chemical study of effect of conjugation on structure and spectral properties of C105 sensitizing dye

The structure and spectral properties of two organic ruthenium complexes used as sensitizing dyes for solar batteries (well-known N3 dye and its selenophene-conjugated analogue C105 ([Ru(bpy)(bpysef)(COOH)(2)(NCS)(2)] (bpy = 2,2'-bipyridine, bpysef = 4,4'-bis(5-hexylselenophene-2-yl)2,2'-bipyridine)) are comparatively studied within the density functional method. It is shown that the conjugation of the bipyridine ligand with selenophene affects the electronic structure of the C105 dye. A multilevel model for interpreting the electronic spectra of dyes is proposed based on the analysis of the shapes of molecular orbitals. The nature of the absorption bands of these ruthenium complexes in the region of 300-800 nm is explained. It is found that, in the polar acetonitrile solvent, these dyes are negatively solvatochromic, which agrees with the current classical views on the effect of the solvent on the shape of electronic absorption spectra of related compounds.