| dc.description.abstract | The dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) is one of the most hot research topics in the photovoltaic technology, due to its colorfulness, transparence, flexibility, impressive conversion efficiency and low manufacture cost. The sensitizer, center for photon to electricity conversion, plays a vital role in the photovoltaic performance and long-term stability of the DSCs. In this study, six new ruthenium complexes, coded as CYC-B5, CYC-B6S, CYC-B6L, CYC-B7, CYC-B11, and CYC-B13 were designed and synthesized by using the one-pot synthetic procedure. After the structure was identified by NMR, IR, Mass spectroscopy and EA, the light absorption, electrochemical properties as well as the application of these new dyes in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) were explored. It was found that all sensitizers have the molar absorption coefficient for the metal-to-ligand charge transfer transition higher than 16100 M-1 cm-1. The preliminary tests show that the cells based on these dyes with a volatile electrolyte have the conversion efficiency higher than 8.96 % under the illumination of AM 1.5G sunlight at 100 mW/cm2. The cells based on CYC-B11 or CYC-B13 in combination with a low-volatile electrolyte not only have a high efficiency (> 8.3 %) but also display the excellent stability (> 93 %) under prolonged light soaking at 60 oC, comparable with the state-of-the-art robust DSCs. Most importantly, under the illumination of AM 1.5G sunlight, the cell based on CYC-B11 in combination with a volatile electrolyte achieves a conversion efficiency of 11.5 %, the highest efficiency for DSCs reported in literature so far.
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