Piperidine-Substituted Perylene Sensitizer for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

We have prepared a novel piperidine-donor-substituted perylene sensitizer, PK0002, and studied the photovoltaic performance in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Physical properties and photovoltaic performance of this new perylene derivative PK0002 are reported and compared with those of unsubstituted perylene sensitizer, PK0003. PK0002, when anchored to nanocrystalline TiO2 films, achieves very efficient sensitization across the whole visible range extending up to 800 nm. The incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) spectrum was consistent with the absorption spectrum and resulted in a high short-circuit photocurrent density (Jsc) of 8.8 mAcm(-2). PK0002 showed higher IPCE values than PK0003 in the 520-800 nm region. Under standard AM 1.5 irradiation (100 mWcm(-2)) and using an electrolyte consisting of 0.6M dimethylpropyl-imidazolium iodide, 0.05MI(2), 0.1 M LiI, and 0.5 M tert-butylpyridine in acetonitrile, a solar cell containing sensitizer PK0002 yielded a short-circuit photocurrent density of 7.7 mAcm(-2), an open-circuit photovoltage of 0.57 V, and a fill factor of 0.70, corresponding to an overall conversion efficiency of 3.1%.