Theoretical studies on effective metal-to-ligand charge transfer characteristics of novel ruthenium dyes for dye sensitized solar cells

The development of ruthenium dye-sensitizers with highly effective metal-to-ligand charge transfer (MLCT) characteristics and narrowed transition energy gaps are essential for the new generation of dye-sensitized solar cells. Here, we designed a novel anchoring ligand by inserting the cyanovinyl-branches inside the anchoring ligands of selected highly efficient dye-sensitizers and studied their intrinsic optical properties using theoretical methods. Our calculated results show that the designed ruthenium dyes provide good performances as sensitizers compared to the selected efficient dyes, because of their red-shift in the UV-visible absorption spectra with an increase in the absorption intensity, smaller energy gaps and thereby enhancing MLCT transitions. We found that, the designed anchoring ligand acts as an efficient "electron-acceptor" which boosts electron-transfer from a -NCS ligand to this ligand via a Ru-bridge, thus providing a way to lower the transition energy gap and enhance the MLCT transitions.