Esculetin-based Organic Chromophores for Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

The development of efficient solar energy harvesting systems is one of the greatest scientific challenges today. Recently attention has been driven to alternative solar collecting devices based on an optical absorbing chromophore anchored to the semiconductor surface. Our previous work on coumarins demonstrated that this molecules can be easily tune to incorporate substituents that allow to increase the conjugation at the 3-position.[1] In a completely new approach we developed new dye-sensitized solar cells, based on Grätzel’s model. The optical absorbing chromophore was built on 6,7-dihydroxycoumarin (Esculetin, a natural product), a linker based on ethenylaryl substituents and at the end a strong electron acceptor moiety anchored to the semiconductor surface.