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The formation, characterization, and dye sensitized solar cell application of nickel(II), zinc(II) and cadmium(II) ferrocenyl dithiophosphonate complexes were investigated. The multidentate monoanionic ligand [S 2 PFc(OH)] À (L1) was synthesized. The reaction between metal salt precursors and L1 produced Ni(II) complexes of the type [Ni{S 2 P(Fc)(OH)} 2 ] (1) (molar ratio 1:2), and a tetranickel(II) complex of the type [Ni 2 {S 2 OP(Fc)} 2 ] 2 (2) (molar ratio (1:1). It also produced a Zn(II) complex [Zn{S 2 P (Fc)(OH)} 2 ] 2 (3), and a Cd(II) complex [Cd{S 2 P(Fc)(OH)} 2 ] 2 (4). Complexes 1-4 were characterized by 1 H and 31 P NMR, FTIR and elemental analysis, and complexes 1 and 2 were additionally analyzed by X-ray crystallography. The first examples of dyesensitized solar cells (DSSCs) co-sensitized with ferrocenyl dithiophosphonate complexes 1-4 are reported. Co-sensitization with the ruthenium dye N719, produced the dye materials (3)-N719 (η = 8.30%) and (4)-N719 (η = 7.78%), and they were found to have a better overall conversion efficiency than the pure Ru N719 dye standard (η = 7.14%) under the same experimental conditions. The DSSCs were characterized using UV/vis, cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), photovoltaic-(IÀ V curves), and performing incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) measurements.

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