Publication date: 17th February 2025
Photovoltaic energy sources have emerged as a viable alternative to meet the world’s growing energy needs. However, current commercial technologies, such as silicon-based solar cells, require energy-intensive manufacturing processes, resulting in longer Energy Payback Time.[1] Among other emerging photovoltaic technologies,[2] Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) stand out for their promising properties, including low-cost fabrication, easy tunability of absorption properties to produce solar cells in different colours, and high stability.[3,4]
Given the possibility of working with transparent substrates with DSSCs, the idea of using them as smart windows has driven research into dyes with a wide range of colours and on the implementation of photochromic dyes to obtain devices with self-regulating coloration.[5,6] To this end, different families of photochromic dyes based on diphenyl-naphthopyran moiety have been intensively studied, with efficiencies above 4% and fast coloration/discoloration kinetics.[7]
The fast response time and strong fatigue resistance of naphthopyran-based photochromic dyes make them highly valuable for various optical and smart applications. A key feature of these molecules is their tunability: by exploiting advances in organic dye research, modifications can be made to their donor, acceptor, or pi-conjugated systems. These adjustments allow precise control of their optoelectronic properties, leading to improved solar cell efficiencies and optical performance.
In this work, we will present new structures of photochromic dyes for dye-sensitised solar cells by implementing different donor or acceptor units. We will discuss the theoretical investigation carried out by DFT calculations, the synthesis of the dyes and their characterisation, and finally their implementation in devices and their characterisation to determine their photovoltaic properties. We will show that these new dyes can be used to develop solar cells with panchromatic absorption and high colour rendering index, opening up new applications in glazing.
This project has received funding under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement number 832606; project PISCO).
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.