Due to their high conversion efficiency and low cost of production, dye-sensitized solar cells based on organic dyes have attracted considerable attention. By utilizing various heterocycles as construction blocks for organic dyes, the performance of solar cells was optimized to exhibit good light-harvesting features and suppress interfacial recombinations. The aim of this review is to highlight recent progress in the molecular design of heterocyclic-functionalized organic dyes for efficient dye-sensitized solar cells, and special attention has been paid to the relationship between chemical structure and the photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitized solar cells based on these dyes.
Efficient tuning of zinc phthalocyanine-based dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells: a detailed DFT study