Three new organic dyes containing a 5,5'-bithiazole or 2,2'-bithiazole entity have been synthesized for dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) applications. The conversion efficiencies of DSSCs fabricated are moderate due to serious dye aggregation. Upon addition of CDCA co-adsorbents, the optimized cell efficiencies were improved by 43-86%. The best efficiency was 6.31%, which reached 86% of N719-based DSSC fabricated and measured under similar condition. The efficiency can be further improved to 6.45% by adding a near-IR absorbing dye as the co-sensitizer due to broadened IPCE spectrum. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
