Novel organic solar cells have been prepared using molecular clusters of porphyrin dendrimer (donor) and
fullerene (acceptor) dye units assembled on SnO2 electrodes. The molecular clusters of porphyrin with dendritic
structure and fullerene exhibit controlled size and shape in contrast with the reference systems (a porphyrin
dimer and a porphyrin−fullerene dyad) without dendritic structure in TEM images, which show rather irregular
and smaller clusters. The composite molecular nanoclusters of dendritic porphyrin and fullerene prepared in
acetonitrile/toluene mixed solvent absorb light over entire spectrum of visible light. The comparison of
photoelectrochemical properties of composite molecular cluster of porphyrin and fullerene with that of molecular
cluster of porphyrin−C60 dyad with covalent linkage shows the importance of interpenetrating structure in
each network to transport hole and electron efficiently. Furthermore, organic photovoltaic cells using clusters
of supramolecular complexes of V-shaped porphyrin dimer and porphyrin dendrimers with fullerene exhibit
remarkable enhancement in the photoelectrochemical performance as well as broader photoresponse in the
visible and near-infrared regions as compared with the reference system. This clearly indicates that the π−π
interaction between porphyrins and fullerenes in the supramolecular clusters plays an important role in
improving the light energy conversion efficiency.
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