Holistically Optimizing Charge Carrier Dynamics Enables High-Performance Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells and Photodetectors

Abstract

Charge carrier events across organic electronics are ubiquitous, and the derived optimization plays a crucial effect on improving the performance of organic electronics. Herein, a two-dimensional material (Ti3C2T x ) is incorporated into titanium dioxide (TiO2) to impart the Ti3C2T x /TiO2 hybrid film enriched hydroxy group distribution, defect-negligible surface, upshifted work function, and enhanced conductivity yet electron mobility versus the pristine TiO2 film. Therefore, intensified photon-harvesting ability, reduced charge carrier recombination, and efficient charge carrier collection are realized for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on the Ti3C2T x /TiO2 hybrid photoanode relative to control ones. Consequently, the modified DSSCs based on Z907 deliver superior efficiencies of 10.39 and 29.68% under 100 mW/cm2 illumination and ∼1.9 mW/cm2 dim light, respectively, being the highest values of Z907-based DSSCs. However, control devices only obtain lower efficiencies of 8.06 and 23.91% when undergoing the abovementioned illumination. On the other hand, the self-powered homologous photodetectors with the hybrid film as an electron-transporting layer present enhanced detectivity (1.69 × 1011 Jones) and a shortened responsivity of 0.26 s versus that of control ones (1.39 × 1011 Jones and 0.35 s). Our work implies that the Ti3C2T x /TiO2 hybrid film features high potential for improving the performance of organic electronics for its effect of holistically optimizing charge carrier dynamics.

Insights into the Application of 2D Phosphorene in Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells

“…Electricity generated from solar energy through photovoltaic conversion as a means of meeting the world's global energy needs through eco-friendly, sustainable solutions has been a strong focal point for some time. Currently, drawbacks of existing silicon-based solar cells, such as high production costs, weather dependence, and space limitations, have prompted the development of alternative solar technologies to deal with these challenges, especially on other kinds of less costly solar devices that offer good performance, for instance, perovskite solar cells (PSCs), [1,2] organic solar cells (OSCs), [3,4] and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), [5,6] also known as Grätzel cells.…”

DFT and TDDFT Studies of Silicon Analogs of Fluorescein Derivatives

“…Fluorescent dyes, like many other organic small molecules, have been extensively studied in many fields such as solar cells [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45] and fluorescent sensors. 30,[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59] The potential applications of florescent sensors or probes based on structural modifications of few common dyes in which fluorescein 48,57,60-64 plays a very important role.…”

DFT studies of proton transfer of 2, 4-dihydroxybenzoic acid derivatives

“…Organic small molecules have been studied extensively due to their many applications, such as in solar cells 7,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] and other fields. 2,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67] These wide applications are due to their facile synthesis and versatile tuning ability to meet specific requirements.…”