Fabrication of Copper(I) Bipyridyl Complex Based Dye Sensitized Solar Cells

This study investigates the performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) based on a copper(I) complex. A simple form of copper(I) complex dye was synthesized with a structure of [Cu(L)(CH 3 CN)], where L is the 6,6′-dimethyl-4,4′-bis(phenylethynyl)-2,2′-bipyridine ligand. The full structure of DSSC investigated in this study is as follows: FTO/TiO 2 /dye Cu(I) bipyridyl/3I − /I 3 − electrolyte/graphite/FTO. The TiO 2 photoanodes were deposited from apoly(vinylpyrrolidone)-based paste using a spin coating technique. Different conditions of fabrication, such as paste dispersion time and total TiO 2 thickness, were systematically studied in order to optimize the performance of the DSSC. The trigonal planar complex [Cu(L)CH 3 CN] was revealed to be suitable for applications in DSSC. The highest exhibited short circuit current density was found to be 0.48 mA/cm 2 , with an open voltage of 477 mV, a form factor of 34% and a power conversion efficiency of 0.08% for the cell with photoanodes thickness of about 2.2 μm. It was shown that the dye and the paste formulation had great potential for applications in DSSC.