Phenanthrene‐Fused‐Quinoxaline as a Key Building Block for Highly Efficient and Stable Sensitizers in Copper‐Electrolyte‐Based Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on Cu(II/I) bipyridyl or phenanthroline complexes as redox shuttles have achieved very high open-circuit voltages ( V OC , > 1 V). However, their short-circuit photocurrent density ( J SC ) has remained modest. The challenge for increasing the J SC is expected to extend the spectral response of sensitizers to the red or NIR region while maintaining efficient electron injection in the mesoscopic TiO 2 film and fast regeneration by the Cu(I) complex. Here, we report two new D-A-π-A featured sensitizers coded HY63 and HY64 , which employ either benzothiadiazole (BT) or phenanthrene-fused-quinoxaline (PFQ) as the auxiliary electron-withdrawing acceptor moiety. In spite of very similar energy levels and absorption onsets, HY64 -based DSSCs outperform largely their HY63 counterpart, achieving an outstanding power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 12.5% with superior stability. In depth studies of interfacial charge carrier dynamics show that PFQ is superior to BT in retarding charge recombination resulting in near quantitative collection of photogenerated charge carriers.