Photoacoustic measurement of electron injection efficiencies and energies from excited sensitizer dyes into nanocrystalline TiO2 films.

Time-resolved photoacoustic calorimetry is used to measure the energy released upon injection of an electron from an electronically excited dye adsorbed to nanocrystalline TiO2 into the conduction band of this material. More energy is released when the environment of the dye is made less polar, because the energy of the dye-oxidized state has a more pronounced solvent dependence than the edge of the conduction band of the TiO2 semiconductor. Such energy dependences should be considered in the design of more efficient dye-sensitized solar cells.