Synthesis of Novel Triphenylamine-Based Organic Dyes with Dual Anchors for Efficient Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

A new series of metal-free organic dyes (SM1-5) with dual anchors are synthesized for application in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC). Here, a simple triphenylamine (TPA) moiety serves as the electron donor, while di-cyanoacrylamide and di-thiazolidine-5-one units serve as the electron acceptors and anchoring groups. To understand the effect of dye structure on the photovoltaic characteristics of DSSCs, the photophysical and electrochemical properties, as well as molecular geometries calculated from density functional theory (DFT), are used for dyes SM1-5. The extinction coefficients of the organic dyes SM1-5 are high (5.36–9.54 10(4) M(−1) cm(−1)), indicating a high aptitude for light harvesting. The photovoltaic studies indicated that using dye SM4 as a sensitizer showed a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 6.09% (J(SC) = 14.13 mA cm(−2), V(OC) = 0.624 V, FF = 68.89%). Interestingly, SM4 showed the highest values of V(OC) among all dyes, including N-719, due to its maximum dye coverage on the TiO(2) surface, enhancing charge recombination resistance in the sensitized cell. The good agreement between the theoretically and experimentally obtained data indicates that the energy functional and basis set employed in this study can be successfully utilized to predict new photosensitizers' absorption spectra with great precision before synthesis. Also, these results show that bi-anchoring molecules have a lot of potentials to improve the overall performance of dye-sensitized solar cells. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s11671-022-03711-6.