Unsymmetrical zinc phthalocyanines containing thiophene and amine groups as donor for bulk heterojunction solar cells

Photovoltaic technology is an alternative resource for renewable and sustainable energy and low costs organic photovoltaic devices such as bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells, which are selective candidates for the effective conversion of solar energy into electricity. Asymmetric phthalocyanines containing electron acceptor and donor groups create high photovoltaic conversion efficiency in dye sensitized solar cells. In this study, a new unsymmetrical zinc phthalocyanine was designed and synthesized including thiophene and amine groups at peripherally positions for BHJ solar cell. The structure of the targeted compound (4) was characterized comprehensively by FT-IR, UV–Vis, ¹H-NMR, and MALDI-TOF MS spectroscopies. The potential of this compound in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) photovoltaic devices as donor was also researched as function of blend ratio (blend ratio was varied from 0.5 to 4). For this purpose, a series of BHJ devices with the structure of fluorine doped indium tin oxide (FTO)/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate)/ ZnPc:[6,6]- phenyl-C61- butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) blend/Al with identical thickness of ZnPc:PCBM layer were fabricated and characterized. Photo current measurements in 4 revealed that the observed photo current maximum is consistent with UV-vis spectra of the compound of 4. Preliminary studies showed that the blend ratio has a critical effect on the BHJ device performance parameters. Photovoltaic conversion efficiency of 6.14% was achieved with 4 based BHJ device.