Porphyrin‐ and Fullerene‐Based Molecular Photovoltaic Devices

We have developed a novel strategy for the construction of molecular photovoltaic devices where the porphyrins and fullerenes employed as building blocks are organized into nanostructured artificial photosynthetic systems by self‐assembly processes. Highly efficient photosynthetic energy‐ and electron‐transfer processes take place at gold and indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes modified with self‐assembled monolayers of porphyrin‐ or fullerene linked systems. Porphyrins and fullerenes have also been assembled step by step to make large and uniform clusters on nanostructured semiconductor electrodes, which exhibit a high power‐conversion efficiency of close to 1 %. These results will provide valuable information on the design of donor–acceptor‐type molecular assemblies that can be tailored to construct highly efficient photovoltaic devices.