Solvent and alkyl substitution effects on charge-transfer mediated triplet state generation in BODIPY dyads: a combined computational and experimental study

Donor-acceptor dyads based on BODIPYs have been recently employed to enhance the formation of triplet excited states with the process of spin-orbit charge transfer intersystem crossing (SOCT-ISC) which does not require introduction of transition metals or other heavy atoms into the molecule. In this work we compare two donor-acceptor dyads based on meso-naphthalenyl BODIPY by combining experimental and computational investigations. The photophysical and electrochemical characterization reveals a significant effect of alkylation of the BODIPY core, disfavoring the SOCT-ISC mechanism for the ethylated BODIPY dyad. This is complemented with a computational investigation carried out to rationalize the influence of ethyl substituents and solvent effects on the electronic structure and efficiency of triplet state population via charge recombination (CR) from the photoinduced electron transfer (PeT) generated charge-transfer (CT) state. Time dependent-density functional theory (TD-DFT) calculations including solvent effects and spin-orbit coupling (SOC) calculations uncover the combined role played by solvent and alkyl substitution on the lateral positions of BODIPY.

Measuring carrier diffusion in MAPbI3 solar cells with photocurrent-detected transient grating spectroscopy

Conventional time-of-flight methods can be used to determine carrier mobilities for photovoltaic cells in which the transit time between electrodes is greater than the RC time constant of the device. To measure carrier drift on sub-ns timescales, we have recently developed a two-pulse time-of-flight technique capable of detecting drift velocities with 100-ps time resolution in perovskite materials. In this method, the rates of carrier transit across the active layer of a device are determined by varying the delay time between laser pulses and measuring the magnitude of the recombination-induced nonlinearity in the photocurrent. Here, we present a related experimental approach in which diffractive optic-based transient grating spectroscopy is combined with our two-pulse time-of-flight technique to simultaneously probe drift and diffusion in orthogonal directions within the active layer of a photovoltaic cell. Carrier density gratings are generated using two time-coincident pulse-pairs with passively stabilized phases. Relaxation of the grating amplitude associated with the first pulse-pair is detected by varying the delay and phase of the density grating corresponding to the second pulse-pair. The ability of the technique to reveal carrier diffusion is demonstrated with model calculations and experiments conducted using MAPbI3 photovoltaic cells.

Ultrafast Dynamics of Solute Molecules Probed by Resonant Optical Kerr Effect Spectroscopy

Ultrafast molecular dynamics in fluids is of great importance in many biological and chemical systems. Although such dynamics in bulk liquids has been explored by various methods, experimental tools that unveil the dynamics of solvated solutes are limited. In this work, we have developed resonant optical Kerr effect spectroscopy (ROKE), which is an analogue of optical Kerr effect spectroscopy that measures the reorientational relaxation of a dilute solute in solution. By adjusting the pump and probe wavelengths at the resonant absorption band of a solute, the time response of the solute was distinguished easily from the negligible signal of the solvent. The heterodyne detection of ROKE enables the determination of reorientational relaxation time constants with an accuracy of 2.6%. The signal-to-noise ratio was high enough (average ∼26.7) to obtain an adequate signal from even a 10 μM solution. Thus, ROKE is a powerful tool to study solute dynamics with high sensitivity in a broad range of applications.

Effect of the iodine atom position on the phosphorescence of BODIPY derivatives: a combined computational and experimental study

A new BODIPY derivative (o-I-BDP) containing an iodine atom in the ortho position of the meso-linked phenyl group was prepared. Photophysical and electrochemical properties of the molecule were compared to previously reported iodo BODIPY derivatives, as well as to the non-iodinated analog. While in the case of derivatives featuring iodine substituents in the BODIPY core, efficient population of the triplet state is accompanied by a substantial positive shift of the reduction potential compared to pristine BODIPY, o-I-BDP displays phosphorescence and simultaneously maintains the electrochemical properties of unsubstituted BODIPYs. A theoretical investigation was settled to analyze results and rationalize the influence of iodine position on electronic and photophysical properties, with the purpose of preparing a fully organic phosphorescent BODIPY derivative. TD-DFT and spin-orbit coupling calculations shed light on the subtle effects played by the introduction of iodine atom in different positions of BODIPY.

Two-dimensional measurements of the solvent structural relaxation dynamics in dipolar solvation

Resonant-pump polarizability response spectroscopy (RP-PORS) is based on an optical heterodyne detected transient grating (OHD-TG) method with an additional resonant pump pulse. In RP-PORS, the resonant pump pulse excites the solute-solvent system and the subsequent relaxation of the solute-solvent system is monitored by the OHD-TG spectroscopy. RP-PORS is shown to be an excellent experimental tool to directly measure the solvent responses in solvation. In the present work, we extended our previous RP-PORS (Park et al., Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2011, 13, 214-223) to measure time-dependent transient solvation polarizability (TSP) spectra with Coumarin153 (C153) in acetonitrile. The time-dependent TSP spectra showed how the different solvent intermolecular modes were involved in different stages of the solvation process. Most importantly, the inertial and diffusive components of the solvent intermolecular modes in solvation were found to be spectrally and temporally well-separated. In a dipolar solvation of C153, high-frequency inertial solvent modes were found to be driven instantaneously and decay on a subpicosecond timescale while low-frequency diffusive solvent modes were induced slowly and decayed on a picosecond timescale. Our present result is the first experimental manifestation of frequency-dependent solvent intermolecular response in a dipolar solvation.

New insights into response functions of liquids by electric field-resolved polarization emission time measurements

We resolve information about the dynamics of simple liquids that has been obscured in prior frequency and time-domain measurements by way of full field-resolved polarization emission time (FR-PET) measurements of carbon disulfide. The amplitude and phase of the field-resolved transient-grating signal is used to calculate a spectrogram of the signal field at each delay between the transient-grating (TG) pump and probe pulses. The temporal maximum of the spectrogram, defined to be the signal emission time, varies with pump-probe delay; it follows the convolution of the TG pulses while the pulses overlap and exhibits recurrences at times when the nuclear dynamics are the main component of the liquid material response. Since this is a third-order nonlinear spectroscopic method, the isotropic and anisotropic signals are constructed from the polarization tensor components. The frequency-integrated anisotropic component of the signal is equivalent to the signal measured in optical Kerr Effect (OKE) experiments. The FR-PET determination of the signal emission times is a direct measurement of the third-order nonlinear (polarizability) polarization and, hence provides new strong constraints on appropriate models of the liquid dynamics. Models for the material response function are used to calculate the signal emission times. In particular, we show that the proper treatment of the time-correlation function for orientational motion gives the best fit to the FR-PET data for rotational diffusional motion. We also establish that librational motion is not a short-time (coherent) motion that leads to rotational diffusion. Finally, we find that the Bucaro-Litovitz form for interaction-induced dynamics is not entirely correct for the CS(2) liquid we study. We suggest that the failing may result from the implicit assumption of two-body interactions, which is only appropriate for gases.