3,4-Ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) and 3,4-ethylenedithiathiophene (EDTT) as terminal blocks for oligothiophene dyes for DSSCs

Abstract Thiophene pentamers with a cyanoacrylic acid anchoring group at one end and 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) or 3,4-ethylenedithiathiophene (EDTT) units at the other end have been synthesized. Preliminary evaluation in DSSCs with a iodide/triiodide liquid electrolyte shows that in spite of the very close electronic properties of the two dyes, replacing EDOT by EDTT leads to a noticeable improvement of conversion efficiency under simulated solar light.