Influence of the electrolyte cation in organic dye-sensitized solar cells: lithium versus dimethylimidazolium

We investigate the influence of electrolyte cations such as lithium and dimethylimidazolium on the spectroscopic and electrical characteristics of dye-sensitized solar cells based on a metal-free chromophore C218. An evident bathochromic effect of lithium with respect to dimethylimidazolium is noticed for the C218 dye-coated nanocrystalline titania film via measuring electronic absorption and photocurrent action spectra. In comparison with dimethylimidazolium, the use of lithium as the electrolyte cation evokes a downward shift of the excited-state redox potential of the C218 sensitizer by 120 mV, and that of the conduction band edge of the nanocrystalline TiO(2) film by 390 meV. The resultant remarkable variation in the energy alignment at the titania/dye interface brings on dissimilar electron injection yields as revealed by transient emission measurements. Modulating the titania surface states distribution with lithium relative to dimethylimidazolium induces a slightly declining electron diffusion coefficient in the mesoporous titania film. However, the adsorption of lithium cations on titania strongly retards the interfacial charge recombination compared to dimethylimidazolium, contributing to an over one order of magnitude of enhancement of electron diffusion length. The improvement of electron diffusion length has a noticeable effect on the charge collection yield, which can also be observed by measuring monochromatic incident photon-to-electron conversion efficiencies. Further interface engineering is needed to enhance both the photovoltage and photocurrent, making use of the full power of metal-free organic dyes.