Recently, p-type dye-sensitized solar cells (p-DSSCs) have attracted increasing attention. The widely used carboxylic acid groups for TiO2 based sensitizers may not be the optimal choice for p-DSSCs. Herein new donor-π-acceptor organic sensitizers with pyridine ring as anchoring group are designed and synthesized for p-DSSCs. The detailed investigation demonstrates that carboxylic acid groups may have an effect on the negative shift of the valence band edge of NiO induced by surface protonation, which lowers the hole-injection process and the device photovoltage, while the pyridine ring works effectively without this problem. The p-DSSC based on the new sensitizer shows an overall conversion efficiency of ∼0.16% under full sunlight (AM 1.5G, 100 mW cm–2) irradiation.

Ruthenium complexes featuring triphenylamine donor antennas boost dye-sensitized solar cell devices' power conversion efficiency close to 11%.

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