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Using scanning electrochemical microscopy to examine copper(I) sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells

journal contribution
posted on 2017-06-16, 13:16 authored by Colin J. Martin, Biljana Bozic-Weber, Edwin C. Constable, Thilo Glatzel, Catherine E. Housecroft, Iain Wright
The examination of surface charges within dye-sensitized solar cells containing copper(I)-based dyes has proved to be difficult due to the instability of these systems compared with existing commercial dyes. We report the use of scanning electrochemical microscopy in a setup in which homoleptic [Cu(Lancillary)2]+ complexes are used as the electrolyte to investigate a series of [Cu(Lanchor)(L ancillary)]+ sensitizers. The ligands Lanchor and Lancillary are 6,6′-disubstituted 2,2′-bipyridines. By incorporating sensitizers and electrolytes containing the same ligands, changes in the diffusion layer around the scanning electrode have been used to map the substrate surface both in the dark and under controlled illumination. Examination of the changes in current as a constant potential is applied shows the formation of stable surface charge as the cell components equilibrate. Comparison of the time taken for this stabilization to occur as ancillary or anchoring ligands within the dye and electrolyte are varied shows a significant dependence upon the aliphatic substituents in the 6,6′-positions of the ligands that surround the copper(I) center. © 2014 American Chemical Society.

Funding

We thank the European Research Council (Advanced Grant 267816 LiLo), the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Nano Argovia programme of the Swiss Nanoscience Institute, and the University of Basel for financial support.

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Chemistry

Published in

Journal of Physical Chemistry C

Volume

118

Issue

30

Pages

16912 - 16918

Citation

MARTIN, C.J. ...et al., 2014. Using scanning electrochemical microscopy to examine copper(I) sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells. Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 118(30), pp. 16912-16918.

Publisher

© American Chemical Society

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2014

Notes

This paper is in closed access.

ISSN

1932-7447

eISSN

1932-7455

Language

  • en

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