Co-Sensitization of Zinc and Free-Base Porphyrins with an Organic Dye for Efficient Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Co-sensitization of an efficient zinc porphyrin sensitizer (LD14) with its free-base analogue (H2LD14) and an organic dye (AN-3) improves the efficiency of the dye-sensitized solar cells. The superior performance of the co-sensitized system is attributed to complementary absorptions of the three dyes, resulting in panchromatic incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency responses at the expense of only slightly lowered open-circuit voltage.