Near Infrared Organic Semiconducting Materials for Bulk Heterojunction and Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) and bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells have been the subject of intensive academic interest over the past two decades, and significant commercial effort has been directed towards this area with the vison of developing the next generation of low cost solar cells. Materials development has played a vital role in the dramatic improvement of both DSSC and BHJ solar cell performance in the recent years. Organic conjugated polymers and small molecules that absorb solar light in the visible and near infrared (NIR) regions represent a class of emering materials and show a great potential for the use of different optoelectronic devices such as DSSCs and BHJ solar cells. This account describes the emering class of near infrared (NIR) organic polymers and small molecules having donor and acceptors units, and explores their potential applications in the DSSCs and BHJ solar cells.

Effect of PVP-Capped ZnO Nanoparticles with Enhanced Charge Transport on the Performance of P3HT/PCBM Polymer Solar Cells

“…Since the first report on PSCs in 1986, various studies have been conducted to improve their performance [4]. Significant efforts have been made to improve the power conversion efficiency (PCE) through unconventional donor–acceptor materials [5,6,7,8], advanced device architectures such as inverted structures of PSCs [9], new additives and dopant materials [10,11,12], optimized interfaces [13], etc. In particular, inverted structures of PSCs have been studied because of their superior device stability for high PCE [9].…”

Molecular Engineering and Structure-Related Properties of Squaraine Dyes Based on the Core and Wings Concept

“…The absorption of photons in the near-infrared (NIR) region by fluorescent dyes has an increasing number of applications in biomedical science, materials science, and nanotechnology . A series of NIR dyes, such as BODIPY, DPP, phthalocyanine, and squaraine, have been reported . Among them, squaraine dyes have shown promising applications in fluorescent probes, , photosensitizers [in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs)], electron donors [in organic photovoltaic (OPV)], optical storage media, − sensitizers for photodynamic cancer therapy, − and two-photon absorbing materials. , Because OPV devices are being fabricated with a blend of fullerene and polymer/small molecule (SM) derivatives, which play a key role in enhancing the power conversion efficiency (PCE) .…”

Study of interface chemistry between the carrier-transporting layers and their influences on the stability and performance of organic solar cells

“…Over the last few decades, in the field of photonics and organic electronics, a remarkable research has been conducted on a variety of organic materials and some organic material-based electronic devices such as sensors and lightemitting diodes (OLEDs) have been commercialized (Brütting 2006;Palaniappan and John 2008). Organic materials used in the application of organic solar cells (OSCs) have lower power conversion efficiency (PCE) than inorganic materials because of their low charge carrier mobility, production of charge carriers with an excitonic nature and extremely low absorption coefficient, i.e., red or near infrared spectrum (Bin et al 2016;He et al 2015;Singh and Sharma 2014). Furthermore, in the organic photovoltaic systems, the extraction and transporting of holes and electrons primarily depend on the interfacial buffer layers between electrodes and the active layer (Xiao et al 2015).…”