UV-harvesting dyes featuring a fluorene donor for visibly transparent and colorless dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

We report the facile synthesis of UV-harvesting dyes featuring a fluorene donor with different π-conjugation bridges. Moreover, we determine the spectroscopic, electrochemical and colorific properties of the dyes and verify their applicability as photosensitizers in visibly transparent and colorless dye-sensitized solar cells. The UV-selective and visibly transparent solar cells exhibit a power conversion efficiency of 0.91%–2.70% under one sun illumination (100 mW/m2) and 6.17%–8.13% under UVA (365 nm, 115.22 mW/m2), with the corresponding visible light transmittance of 60.73%–58.22% and general color rendering index of 91–90.