Commercially viable porphyrinoid dyes for solar cells

Multifunctional molecules bearing different dyes, such as donor–acceptor systems, synthesized by covalent chemistry have provided a wealth of information on the fundamental nature of electron and energy transfer in organic systems and there is a growing literature on the materials properties of dyes on surfaces. However, in the vast majority of cases the synthetic costs of producing these covalently bound systems prohibit them from deployment in commercially viable devices. Thus, to achieve both the needed multifunctionality and to bring the synthetic costs in line with potential commercialization, supramolecular approaches to the formation of photonic materials can be exploited. This perspective focuses on porphyrinoids as exemplary dyes, but the concepts and design principles extend to other chromophores.