Abstract
To investigate the effect of a tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) unit on the photovoltaic properties of the corresponding dye sensitizer, a TTF-carbazole-based sensitizer, Dye 2, was designed; it was based on the framework of Dye 1. The geometries, electronic structures, and optical properties of Dye 1 and Dye 2 before and after binding to (TiO2)(9) clusters were investigated using density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT. The surface morphologies of the dyes on TiO2 (101) surfaces were simulated by periodic DFT calculations using the DMol(3) program. The calculated results showed that the introduction of TTF units into dyes could help to inhibit dye aggregation on the TiO2 surface; this is conducive to intramolecular charge-transfer transitions and significantly improves the light-harvesting ability. The calculated results demonstrate that the TTF unit is a very promising electron donor for improving the photovoltaic properties of organic dye sensitizers.
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