Effect of Structure on the Photovoltaic Properties of Merocyanine Dyes in Polymer Films

Design and Photonics of Merocyanine Dyes

Merocyanines, thanks to their easily adjustable electronic structure, appear to be the most versatile and promising functional dyes. Their D-π-A framework offers ample opportunities for custom design through variations in both donor/acceptor end-groups and the π-conjugated polymethine chain, and leads to a broad range of practical properties, including noticeable solvatochromism, high polarizability/hyperpolarizabilities, and the ability to sensitize various physicochemical processes. Accordingly, merocyanines are applied and extensively studied in various fields, such as light-converting materials for optoelectronics, nonlinear optics, optical storage, solar cells, fluorescent probes, and antitumor agents in photodynamic therapy. This review encompasses both classical and novel more important publications on the structure-property relationships in merocyanines, with particular emphasis on the results by A.  I. Kiprianov and his followers in Institute of Organic Chemistry in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Generation of red light with intense photoluminescence assisted by Forster resonance energy transfer from Znq2 and DCM thin films

In this work, a novel experimental investigation of photoluminescence properties of Znq₂ thin films co-doped with different concentrations of DCM were performed. The thin films were successfully deposited on glass substrates with different compositions, under high vacuum, by using the vacuum evaporation technique. For all compositions, the photoluminescence was measured at room temperature and also at low temperature in a wide range from 77 to 300 K with a step of 25 K in a high vacuum. The lifetime of the sample studied in real time was also measured using the decay time technique. The results obtained confirm that the doping influences the intensity of the DCM photoluminescence and also shows a complete energy transfer occurred from Znq₂ to DCM which may have shifted the photoluminescence peak from Znq₂ to the orange wavelength region which is related to DCM. The lifetime of the sample studied in real time was about 4.47 ns for Znq₂ and while all the other samples showed two decay time components. As a result, the doping influences the optical properties of Znq₂ and makes it a potential candidate for optoelectronic applications.