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Dicyanovinyl-unit-induced absorption enhancement of iridium(III) complexes in long-wavelength range and potential application in dye-sensitized solar cells

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Abstract

Iridium complexes with dicyanovinyl-grafted phenylpyridine/1-phenylisoquinoline as ligands are synthesized and their photophysical, electrochemical, and sensitization properties in DSSCs are investigated. The iridium complexes present significantly enhanced absorption from 400 to 525 nm. The 1-phenylisoquinoline-based iridium complex show bathochromic-shift emission in DMSO solution compared with their phenylpyridine-based counterpart, while their absorption response and photoluminescence peak in solid show little difference despite extension of the conjugated system. Using DSSCs, the conversion efficiency of 0.62% and open-circuit current of 1.4 mA/cm2 is achieved. The poor performance is attributed to the excited-state properties of iridium complexes according to the TD-DFT calculation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Science, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’An, 710049, China

    Dongdong Wang, Yong Wu, Min Gao & Geng Wang

  2. Key Laboratory for Physical Electronics and Devices of the Ministry of Education, School of Electronic and information Engineering, Xi’An Jiaotong University, Xi’An, 710049, China

    Hua Dong, Bo Jiao & Zhaoxin Wu

  3. Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Institute of Fine Chemicals and Department of Chemistry, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China

    Xiaoyu Zhang

  4. International Research Center for Renewable Energy, State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’An, 710049, China

    Shaohua Shen

Authors
  1. Dongdong Wang
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  2. Hua Dong
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  3. Xiaoyu Zhang
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  4. Yong Wu
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  5. Shaohua Shen
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  6. Bo Jiao
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  7. Zhaoxin Wu
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  8. Min Gao
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  9. Geng Wang
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Correspondence to Dongdong Wang.

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Wang, D., Dong, H., Zhang, X. et al. Dicyanovinyl-unit-induced absorption enhancement of iridium(III) complexes in long-wavelength range and potential application in dye-sensitized solar cells. Sci. China Chem. 58, 658–665 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-014-5212-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-014-5212-x

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