• Energy Research

AbstractThe creation of organic dyes with excellent high power conversion efficiency (PCE) is important for the further improvement of dye‐sensitized solar cells. We wish to describe the rapid synthesis of a 112‐membered donor‐π‐acceptor dye library by a one‐pot procedure, evaluation of PCEs, and elucidation of structure–property relationships. No obvious correlations between ε, and the η were observed, whereas the HOMO and LUMO levels of the dyes were critical for η. The dyes with a more positive EHOMO, and with an ELUMO<−0.80 V, exerted higher PCEs. The proper driving forces were crucial for a high Jsc, and it was the most important parameter for a high η. The above criteria of EHOMO and ELUMO should be useful for creating high PCE dyes; nevertheless, that was not sufficient for identifying the best combination of donor, π, and acceptor blocks. Combinatorial synthesis and evaluation was important for identifying the best dye.

Microwave irradiation efficiently heats up the microwave-inert materials in the range of applied frequencies when two microwave-inert materials are brought into contact in the layered configuration. This heating is applied for annealing TiO2 nanoporous films for dye-sensitized solar cells achieving a one order of magnitude more rapid annealing process for comparable performances.

Abstract Novel interfacial microwave heating of a layered structure has been applied to the process of low-temperature annealing of titania mesoporous films for dye-sensitized solar cells. Interfacial microwave annealing dramatically enhances the cell performances as compared with conventional heating in an electric oven. The improvement of cell performance is attributed to the electron transport properties in the titania films annealed by MW resulting in longer diffusion length as compared with conventional heating.