Porphyrins as excellent dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells: recent developments and insights

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have attracted much attention as an alternative to silicon-based solar cells because of their low-cost production and high power conversion efficiency. Among various sensitizers, numerous research activities have been focused on porphyrins due to their strong absorption bands in the visible region, versatile modifications of their core, and facile tuning of the electronic structures. In 2005-2007, Officer and Grätzel et al. had achieved a rapid increase in the power conversion efficiency of porphyrin DSSCs from a few percent to as much as 7%. Encouraged by these pioneering works, further high-performance porphyrin dyes have been developed in the last decade. These studies…

• JS
  Japan Science and Technology Agency
• AL
  Advanced Low Carbon Technology Research and Development Program