Two new self-assemblies of two zinc porphyrin with isonicotinic acid by metal–ligand axial coordination and their applications in supramolecular solar cell

Two new self-assemblies based on two zinc porphyrins substituted at the meso-positions with different donor units (denoted as ZnP1 and ZnP2) and isonicotinic acid (A) by metal–ligand axial coordination have been designed and immobilized on the double-layer nanostructured TiO2 film-coated highly transparent FTO conducting glass electrode in a photosynthesis device. These cells were also measured under irradiance of 100 mW cm−2 AM 1.5G sunlight. The results reveal that the performance of ZnP2-A outperforms that of ZnP1-A. The UV–vis absorption spectra, fluorescence spectra, molecular orbital (MO) patterns, and HOMO–LUMO energy gaps of these assemblies were also investigated to further demonstrate the photovoltaic behavior of these cells.