Molecular engineering on tyrian puprle natural dye as TiO₂ based fined tuned photovoltaic dye material: DFT molecular...

In this research, molecular modification is employed to see the enhancement in the efficiency of Tyrian Purple (TP), a natural dye, for organic photovoltaic materials. By using Density Functional Theory (DFT) based molecular modeling, seven new structures are designed with pi spacer to extend electron donor moieties. Teheir Frontier Molecular Orbital (FMO) analysis demonstartes their charges with a similar pattern of distributions over their Highest Occupied and Lowed Unocuupied Molecular Orbitals (HOMO/lUMO). This analysls also show their energy gaps (E_gaps) to range around 2.97-3.02 eV. Their maximum absorption wavelength (λ_max) demosntartes 486-490 nm range to indicate their tendency of absorbing light efficiently. Their Transition Density Matrix (TDM) analysis also reveals their facile electronic transitions without a significant charges over spacers. From calculating their photovoltaic paramters, their Light Harvesting Efficiency (LHE) reaches to 72.4-95.5 %. Also their Open Circuit Voltage (V_oc) varies across 1.16-1.34 V. It is found that dyes actively adsorb onto TiO₂ clusters to demonstrate their promise for tuning their Conduction Band (CB). This research is an effort for to evaluate the structural correlations to the develop photovoltaic materials through molecular-level design and optimization.