Faculty Publications

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    From Molecular Design to Co-sensitization; High performance indole based photosensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells
    (Elsevier Ltd, 2016) Babu, D.D.; Su, R.; El-Shafei, A.; Vasudeva Adhikari, A.V.
    Herein, we report the molecular design and synthesis of two novel organic co-adsorbers DBA-1((Z)-2-cyano-3-(5-(4-(cyclohexa-1,5-dien-3-ynyl(phenyl)amino)phenyl)-1-hexyl-1H-indol-3-yl)acrylic acid) and (DBA-2) 5-((5-(4-(diphenylamino)phenyl)-1-hexyl-1H-indol-3-yl)methylene)pyrimidine-2,4,6(1H,3H,5H)-trione with D-D-A (donor-donor-acceptor) architecture. We have combined the strong electron donating triphenylamine group with indole moiety attached to different acceptors/anchoring groups, as co-adsorbers for dye-sensitized solar cells and we present for the first time, the role of anchoring/acceptor unit on their co-adsorption properties. In this study, cyanoacetic acid and barbituric acid are employed as anchoring groups in the co-sensitizers DBA-1 and DBA-2, respectively. Their electrochemical and photo-physical properties along with molecular geometries, obtained from Density Functional Theory (DFT) are employed to vindicate the effect of co-sensitizer structures on photovoltaic properties of DSSCs. We have demonstrated that the co-sensitization effect is profoundly dependent upon the anchoring/acceptor unit in the co-adsorber molecule. Devices co-sensitized using DBA-1 and DBA-2 along with HD-2 (Ru-complex of 4, 4?-bis-(1,4-benzodioxan-5-yl-vinyl)-[2,2?]bipyridine), displayed higher power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) than the device sensitized using only HD-2. In the present work, ruthenium based sensitizer, HD-2, has been chosen due to its better solar-to-power conversion efficiency and impressively higher photocurrent densities than that of standard N719. Among them, co-adsorber DBA-2, containing barbituric acid as the acceptor/anchoring group displays promising photovoltaic results and exhibited an enhanced efficiency of 8.06%. Further, good agreement between the calculated and experimental results showcase the precision of the energy functional and basis set utilized in this study. All these findings provide a deeper insight and better understanding into the intricacies involved in the design of superior co-sensitizers for development of highly efficient DSSCs. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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    Asymmetric Dual Anchoring Sensitizers/Cosensitizers for Dye Sensitized Solar Cell Application: An Insight into Various Fundamental Processes inside the Cell
    (American Chemical Society service@acs.org, 2019) Kesavan, R.; Attia, F.; Su, R.; Anees, P.; El-Shafei, A.; Vasudeva Adhikari, A.V.
    To study the various fundamental processes occurring inside the dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC), we have fabricated devices employing newly synthesized diphenylamine-based organic dyes with A-D-?-A configuration, carrying four different anchoring groups, namely, cyanoacetic acid (DDC), rhodanine acetic acid (DDR), 4-hydrazinylbenzoic acid (DDH), and barbituric acid (DDB), as effective sensitizers/cosensitizers. In the present work, all the bianchoring dyes were subjected to photophysical, electrochemical, thermodynamic, photoelectrochemical, and theoretical studies. All of them displayed characteristic ?abs and ?emi in the range of 415-480 and 570-680 nm, respectively. Their optical and electrochemical band gaps were calculated to be in the order of 2.1 to 2.3 eV. The calculated driving forces for electron injection (?Ginj), recombination (?Ginj), and regeneration (?Greg) processes were found to be negative, showing the feasibility of these processes, while their DFT studies clearly indicated the directional flow of electrons within the dye in the cell. The devices with DDC as sensitizer displayed the highest conversion efficiency of 2.53%, whereas DDB exhibited the maximum of 7.69% when employed as a cosensitizer along with Ru (II) based HD-2 dye. Finally, EIS circuit fitting was carried out in order to obtain different interface resistance values to study the fundamental processes of energy conversion. © © 2019 American Chemical Society.
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    Push-pull carbazole twin dyads as efficient sensitizers/co-sensitizers for DSSC application: effect of various anchoring groups on photovoltaic performance
    (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2025) Keremane, K.S.; Abdellah, I.M.; Eletmany, M.R.; Naik, P.; Anees, P.; Vasudeva Adhikari, A.V.
    To investigate the effect of various anchoring groups of organic sensitizers on fundamental processes occurring inside DSSCs and their overall performance, we designed and synthesized nine new double donor-acceptor (D-A) type organic dyes DCH1-9 comprising carbazole-based twin molecules as electron donors, with a non-conjugated linear alkyl chain as an extended linker featuring multiple acceptor units. Their photophysical, thermal, electrochemical, and theoretical properties were examined to gain a deeper understanding of the structure-property relationship. Photophysical results revealed that all dyes display ?abs and ?emi in the range of 400-470 nm and 500-560 nm, respectively, with a bandgap in the range of 2.46-2.74 eV. The push-pull structure with extended conjugation results in strong fluorescence characteristics. Photophysical and electrochemical studies confirm their thermodynamic feasibility for electron injection, recombination, and dye regeneration in cells. Quantum chemical simulations further provided insights into their structural, electronic, and optical parameters. New DSSCs were fabricated employing dyes DCH1-9 as sensitizers/co-sensitizers. The cell sensitized with DCH1 achieved the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 2.45% under standard AM 1.5 solar conditions. Furthermore, co-sensitization of DCH1-9 with the Ru-based HD-2 sensitizer resulted in an improved PCE of 8.82% for DCH2, surpassing HD-2 alone (6.79%). EIS studies were conducted to further explore their energy conversion processes. Conclusively, these investigations highlight the significant potential of dyes carrying carbazole twin molecules with different anchoring units in enhancing the overall performance of DSSCs. © 2025 The Royal Society of Chemistry.