Structurally Simple and Easily Accessible Perylenes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Applicable to Both 1 Sun and Dim-Light Environments

The need for low-cost and highly efficient dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells under both the sunlight and dim light environments is growing. We have devised GJ -series push–pull organic dyes which require only four synthesis steps. These dyes feature a linear molecular structure of donor–perylene–ethynylene–arylcarboxylic acid, where donor represents N, N -diarylamino group and arylcarboxylic groups represent benzoic, thienocarboxylic, 2-cyano-3-phenylacrylic, 2-cyano-3-thienoacrylic, and 4-benzo[ c ][1,2,5]thiadiazol-4-yl-benzoic groups. In this study, we demonstrated that a dye without tedious and time-consuming synthesis efforts can perform efficiently. Under the illumination of AM1.5G simulated sunlight, the benzothiadiazole-benzoic-containing GJ-BP dye shows the best power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 6.16% with V OC of 0.70 V and J SC of 11.88 mA cm –2 using liquid iodide-based electrolyte. It also shows high performance in converting light of 6000 lx light intensity, that is, incident power of ca. 1.75 mW cm –2, to power output of 0.28 mW cm –2 which equals a PCE of 15.79%. Interestingly, the benzoic-containing dye GJ-P with a simple molecular structure has comparable performance in generating power output of 0.26 mW cm –2 (PCE of 15.01%) under the same condition and is potentially viable toward future application.