ABSTRACT
Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) are a very promising technology that can combine the high-stability features common to the inorganic semiconductors and the wide flexibility of the organic compounds. Indeed, these novel solar cells are multi-component devices that can be prepared using different metal oxides as charge transport materials in combination with organometallic or organic sensitizers as absorber. In this chapter, after a presentation of main type of DSCs, attention will be paid to the photophysics of devices sensitized with metallo-porphyrins based dyes and the effect of the different functionalzation of their tetra-aryl porphyrinic core. Different techniques have been used to evaluate the main photophysics parameters to point out the critical effect of proper functionalization over the efficiency of the devices. The porphyrinic structures have been synthesized and studied for applications in DSCs, inspired by the process of collecting solar energy by photosynthetic nuclei of bacteria and plants, which involve a porphyrin centre as a chromophore for the collection of light.
