Design and synthesis of new ruthenium complex for dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

A series of ruthenium complexes (MC-1–MC-3), incorporated with carbazole, fluorene and phenothiazine units with dipyrido[3,2-a:2′,3′-c]phenazine are synthesized, characterized and their optical, electrochemical and photovoltaic properties are investigated. The observed differences in light-harvesting ability of the sensitizers are associated with the electron donor strength of the ancillary ligand used for preparing complexes. The dye-sensitized solar cell fabricated from complex MC-1 exhibited a power conversion efficiency of 6.18%. It is demonstrated that new molecular design and increase in molar absorption coefficient of the sensitizer improved the device performance.