Design new D-π-A materials for sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells: Quantum chemical study

Abstract

Within this paper, we developed a new series of organic chromophores based on triphenyleamine (TPA) (AL1, AL-2, AL-11 and AL-22) by engineering the structure of the electron donor (D) unit via replacing a phenyle ring or inserting thiophene as a π-linkage. For the sake of scrutinizing the impact of the TPA donating ability and the spacer upon the photovoltaic, absorptional, energetic, and geometrical characteristic of these sensitizers, density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) have been utilized. According to structural characteristics, incorporating the acceptor, π-bridge and TPA does not result in a perfect coplanar conformation in AL-22. We computed EHOMO, ELUMO and bandgap (Eg) energies by performing frequency and ground-state calculations. Next, we performed TD-CAM-B3LYP calculations to compute oscillator strength (f) and the maximum adsorption wavelength (λmax). The absorption bands were extended up to ∼ 647 nm for AL-22. The findings demonstrated that AL-22 is the most promising dye among other dyes.