Raman spectroscopy of short-lived terthiophene radical cations generated by photochemical and chemical oxidation

Thiophene-Based Trimers and Their Bioapplications: An Overview

Certainly, the success of polythiophenes is due in the first place to their outstanding electronic properties and superior processability. Nevertheless, there are additional reasons that contribute to arouse the scientific interest around these materials. Among these, the large variety of chemical modifications that is possible to perform on the thiophene ring is a precious aspect. In particular, a turning point was marked by the diffusion of synthetic strategies for the preparation of terthiophenes: the vast richness of approaches today available for the easy customization of these structures allows the finetuning of their chemical, physical, and optical properties. Therefore, terthiophene derivatives have become an extremely versatile class of compounds both for direct application or for the preparation of electronic functional polymers. Moreover, their biocompatibility and ease of functionalization make them appealing for biology and medical research, as it testifies to the blossoming of studies in these fields in which they are involved. It is thus with the willingness to guide the reader through all the possibilities offered by these structures that this review elucidates the synthetic methods and describes the full chemical variety of terthiophenes and their derivatives. In the final part, an in-depth presentation of their numerous bioapplications intends to provide a complete picture of the state of the art.

Resonance Raman Spectroscopy of the T1 Triplet Excited State of Oligothiophenes

The characterization of triplet excited states is essential for research on organic photovoltaics and singlet fission. We report resonance Raman spectra of two triplet oligothiophenes with n-alkyl substituents, a tetramer and hexamer. The spectra of the triplets are more complex than the ground state, and we find that density functional theory calculations are a useful starting point for characterizing the bands. The spectra of triplet tetrathiophene and hexathiophene differ significantly from one another. This observation is consistent with a T1 excitation that is delocalized over at least five rings in long oligomers. Bands in the 500-800 cm(-1) region are greatly diminished for an aggregated sample of hexathiophene, likely caused by fast electronic dephasing. These experiments highlight the potential of resonance Raman spectroscopy to unequivocally detect and characterize triplets in thiophene materials. The vibrational spectra can also serve as rigorous standards for evaluating computational methods for excited-state molecules.

Modulation of electronic properties in neutral and oxidized oligothiophenes substituted with conjugated polyaromatic hydrocarbons

The structural and electronic properties of neutral and oxidized terthiophenes substituted with polyaromatic systems have been investigated using a combination of both Raman and electronic absorption spectroscopy in conjunction with density functional theory calculations. Naphthylethenyl terthiophene exhibits structural and electronic properties, in both the neutral and oxidized species, that are dominated by the terthiophene backbone, in a manner similar to that previously reported for phenylethenylterthiophene. Anthracenylethenyl terthiophene, on the other hand, displays properties that are dominated by the anthracene group. Unlike both phenylethenyl and naphthylethenyl terthiophene, which have electronic absorption spectra dominated by transitions between molecular orbitals that are delocalized throughout the molecules, the absorption spectrum of anthracenylethenyl terthiophene consists of a simple addition of the absorption bands of the separate terthiophene and anthracenylethene chromophores. This is the result of a spatial partitioning of its molecular orbitals that effectively electronically decouples the anthracene and terthiophene moieties. Upon oxidation, the naphthylethenylterthiophene sigma-dimerizes to form sexithiophene charged species and spectral signatures of the sexithiophene backbone are evident in both the electronic absorption and resonance Raman spectra. In contrast, these signatures are absent in the corresponding spectra of the oxidized anthracenylethenylterthiophene, suggesting that the anthracene group is the primary site of the structural changes induced by oxidation.