Novel Triarylamine-Based Hole Transport Materials: Synthesis, Characterization and Computational Investigation

Three novel triarylamine-based electron-rich chromophores were synthesized and fully characterized. Compounds 1 and 2 were designed with electron-rich triphenylamine skeleton bearing two and four decyloxy groups namely, 3,4-bis(decyloxy)-N,N-diphenylaniline and N-(3,4-bis(decyloxy)phenyl)-3,4-bis(decyloxy)-N-phenylaniline, respectively. The well-known electron-rich phenothiazine was introduced to diphenylamine moiety through a thiazole ring to form N,N-bis(3,4-bis(decyloxy)phenyl)-5-(10H-phenothiazin-2-yl)thiazol-2-amine (Compound 3). These three novel compounds were fully characterized and their UV–vis absorption indicated their transparency as a favorable property for hole transport materials (HTMs) suitable for perovskite solar cells. Cyclic voltammetry measurements revealed that the HOMO energy levels were in the range 5.00–5.16 eV for all compounds, indicating their suitability with the HOMO energy level of the perovskite photosensitizer. Density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) have been used to investigate the possibility of the synthesized compounds to be utilized as HTMs for perovskite solar cells (PSCs). The computational investigation revealed that the hole mobility of Compound 1 was 1.08 × 10−2 cm2 V−1 s−1, and the substitution with two additional dialkoxy groups on the second phenyl ring as represented by Compound 2 significantly boosted the hole mobility to reach the value 4.21 × 10−2 cm2 V−1 s−1. On the other hand, Compound 3, in which the third phenyl group was replaced by a thiazole-based phenothiazine, the value of hole mobility decreased to reach 5.93 × 10−5 cm2 V−1 s−1. The overall results indicate that these three novel compounds could be promising HTMs for perovskite solar cells.