Abstract Anthocyanins, which are responsible for most of the red, blue and purple colors of fruits and flowers, are very efficient at absorbing and dissipating light energy via excited state proton transfer or charge-transfer mediated internal conversion without appreciable excited triplet state formation. During the maturation of red wines, grape anthocyanins are slowly transformed into pyranoanthocyanins, which have a much more chemically stable pyranoflavylium cation chromophore. Development of straightforward synthetic routes to mono- and disubstituted derivatives of the pyranoflavylium cation chromophore has stimulated theoretical and experimental studies that highlight the interesting absorption and emission properties and redox properties of pyranoflavylium cations. Thus, p-methoxyphenyl substitution enhances the fluorescence quantum yield, while a p-dimethylaminophenyl substituent results in fast decay via a twisted intramolecular charge-transfer (TICT) state. Unlike anthocyanins and their synthetic analogs (flavylium cations), a variety of pyranoflavylium cations form readily detectable excited triplet states that sensitize singlet oxygen formation in solution and exhibit appreciable two-photon absorption cross sections for near-infrared light, suggesting a potential for applications in photodynamic therapy. These excited triplet states have microsecond lifetimes in solution and excited state reduction potentials of at least 1.3 V vs. SCE, features that are clearly desirable in a triplet photoredox catalyst.
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Understanding the influence of geometric and electronic structure on the excited state dynamical and photoredox properties of perinone chromophores
In this work, a series of eight similarly structured perinone chromophores were synthesized and photophysically characterized to elucidate the electronic and structural tunability of their excited state properties, including excited state redox potentials and fluorescence lifetimes/quantum yields. Despite their similar structure, these chromophores exhibited a broad range of visible absorption properties, quantum yields, and excited state lifetimes. In conjunction with static and time-resolved spectroscopies from the ultrafast to nanosecond time regimes, time-dependent computational modeling was used to correlate this behavior to the relationship between non-radiative decay and the energy-gap law. Additionally, the ground and excited state redox potentials were calculated and found to be tunable over a range of 1 V depending on the diamine or anhydride used in their synthesis ( E red * = 0.45–1.55 V; E ox * = −0.88 to −1.67 V), which is difficult to achieve with typical photoredox-active transition metal complexes. These diverse chromophores can be easily prepared, and with their range of photophysical tunability, will be valuable for future use in photofunctional applications.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1955795
- PAR ID:
- 10347515
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
- Volume:
- 23
- Issue:
- 42
- ISSN:
- 1463-9076
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 24200 to 24210
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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