COPPER AND RUTHENIUM COMPLEXES IN SENSITIZED SOLAR CELLS AND OPTOELECTRONICS

In perfect harmony with the "Year of Light (IYL 2015)", the thesis has been entirely centered on the concept of Light involving the development of transition metal complexes for both the conversion of light into electric energy through dye-sensitized solar cells and, conversely, the production of light starting from electricity by fabrication of electroluminescent devices. The main part of the thesis has been devoted to the sunlight-to-electricity conversion, a target that is well contextualized within the global commitment for the progressive increase of the percentage of electric energy produced by renewable resources. In this context dye-sensitized solar cells, DSSCs, are promising devices alternative to the well established technology of silicon photovoltaics for energy production from the abundant solar light. DSSCs are devices able to harvest solar light and convert it into electricity employing a sensitizer (adsorbed on a semiconductor) and a redox couple properly chosen and combined. The project have concerned the design, synthesis and characterization of both sensitizers and redox mediators constituted by ruthenium and copper-based complexes respectively, together with their final assembly into laboratory-type DSSCs to evaluate their performance. In this way an all-round study has been carried out, from molecules on paper to test benches, passing through laboratory counters. The second, minor part, of the thesis has been focused on the diametrically opposed task, the generation of light. In this context some luminescent heteroleptic complexes based on the cheap and quite abundant copper element have been proposed. The final aim has been the synthesis of efficient luminophores for fabrication of devices able to generate light applying an electric potential across two electrodes such as in organic light-emitting diodes, OLEDs, or in analogue light-emitting electrochemical cells, LECs. The light production in LED-type devices is very efficient especially compared with other traditional artificial light sources like incandescent or fluorescent lamps, and so in line with the international policy of reducing energy consumption. In conclusion the thesis project can be schematically depicted as a circular pathway that joints together two opposite but strictly interconnected concepts (i.e. light and electricity) mutually corresponding to the task and the mean, the start and the end.