Lighting porphyrins and phthalocyanines for molecular photovoltaics.

The field of organic photovoltaics (OPV) represents one of the most promising technological areas. Porphyrins and phthalocyanines are perfectly suited for their integration in light energy conversion systems. These colored macrocycles exhibit very attractive physical properties, particularly very high extinction coefficients in the visible and near IR regions, where the maximum of the solar photon flux occurs, that is necessary for efficient photon harvesting, besides a rich redox chemistry, as well as photoinduced electron transfer and semiconducting capabilities.