Photo-induced energy and electron transfer in carboxylic acid functionalized bis(4′-tert-butylbiphenyl-4-yl)aniline (BBA)-substituted A3B zinc porphyrins

Investigating the role of corrole as an excitation energy relay in light-induced processes in closely connected N,N'-bis(biphenyl-4-yl)aniline functionalized corrole donor-acceptor dyad

A photosynthetic antenna-reaction center model, BBA-PFCor comprised of N,N'-bis(biphenyl-4-yl)aniline (BBA) covalently functionalized to bis(pentafluoro)corrole moiety has been prepared and the contribution of the BBA as the photoinduced energy transfer antenna was investigated. UV-visible studies have shown that integrating the electron-rich BBA chromophore into the corrole core has broadened the soret band of the corrole moiety with the absorption spanning from 300 to 700 nm. Electrochemical studies, in corroboration with the computational calculations, revealed that, BBA moiety can act as an electron reservoir and, in the excited state, it would transfer the excited energy to the corrole moiety in the dyad. Steady-state fluorescence studies have demonstrated that, upon photoexcitation of the BBA moiety of BBA-PFCor at 310 nm in solvents of varied polarity, the BBA emission centered at 400 nm was observed to be quenched, with the concomitant appearance of the corrole emission from 500 to 700 nm, indicating the happening of photoinduced energy transfer (PEnT) from 1BBA* to corrole moiety. Parallel control experiments involving the excitation of the corrole moiety at 410 nm did not result in the diminishing of the corrole emission, suggesting that the quenching of the BBA emission in BBA-PFCor is majorly due to intramolecular PEnT from 1BBA* to corrole moiety leading to the formation of singlet excited corrole, that is, 1BBA*-PFCor ➔ BBA-1PFCor*. The free energy changes of PEnT, ΔGEnT, were found to be thermodynamically feasible in all the solvents used for the study. Parallel time-resolved fluorescence studies were congruent with the steady-state fluorescence results and provided further evidence for the occurrence of ultrafast PEnT from 1BBA*➔corrole in the dyad with the rates of energy transfer (kEnT) of ~108 s-1.

Computational investigation on the geometry and electronic structures and absorption spectra of metal-porphyrin-oligo- phenyleneethynylenes-[60] fullerene triads

In this work, we focus our attention on the influence of 2nd-row transition metals on the structural geometries, electronic structures, and absorption characteristics of porphyrin linked with the C₆₀ fullerene with oligo-p-phenyleneethynylenes (MP-C₆₀-oligo-PPEs) compounds. The DFT/B3PW91-D3 and CAM-B3LYP-D3/6-31G (d) calculations revealed that various metals embedded within the porphyrin moiety give different bridge conformations and different HOMO-LUMO energy levels. We calculate the UV-Vis spectra and absorption parameters using the time-dependent ZINDO/S approach. Our findings indicate that all the compounds have enhanced absorptions in the visible light range, and their molecular orbital energies adopt the condition of sensitizers. However, all of the complexes except down spin states exhibit considerably charge spatial separation. The results suggest that the ZnP-C₆₀-oligo-PPEs triad can meet the necessary conditions of the sensitizer of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) in comparison with other counterparts and could be an optimum triad compound for potential application in photovoltaic devices.