Tahmineh Jalali

In this paper, Safranin-O as a viable photosensitizer in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is introduced and its photosensitising properties respect to various concentrations and solvent is optimized. Moreover, the molecular structure of Safranin-O using density functional theory with the B3YLP method is computed in order to determine the Safranin-O energy bandgap in HOMO, LUMO and DOS. In the next level, the optimized Safranin-O dye is implemented as the photosensitizer within a DSSC and its functionalities investigated using the I-V curve as the figure of merit. In order to fully comprehend the absorption mechanisms within the solar cell structure, the full layer stack is simulated based on the finite element method (FEM) which shows that Safranin-O coated TiO2 nanoparticles are capable of sustaining whispering gallery modes which further improves the optical absorption of the proposed structure.