Aggregation induced emission (AIE) materials based on diketopyrrolopyrrole chromophore for CdS nanowire solar cell applications

Abstract

We designed and synthesized two diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) derivatives (DPP1 and DPP2) which are substituted with phenyl and thiophene moieties in between DPP core and merocyanine dyes, respectively. The introduction of thiophene ring subunit at core position endows DPP2 significantly alters the photophysical, electrochemical and aggregation induces enhanced emissive (AIEE) properties compared to those of DPP1. As a practical point of view, we successfully employed DPP1 and DPP2 as sensitizer on CdS nanowires for fabrication of dye sensitized solar cell (DSSCs). The DSSC based on DPP2 (0.268 percent) dye yielded higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) as compared to DPP1 (0.195 percent) under standard illumination of Sunlight (AM 1.5 G, 100 mW/cm sub(2)). The basis for this different behaviour has been discussed.