A supramolecular tetrad featuring covalently linked ferrocene-zinc porphyrin-BODIPY coordinated to fullerene: a charge stabilizing, photosynthetic antenna-reaction center mimic.

Abstract

A novel photosynthetic-antenna-reaction-center model compound, comprised of BF2 -chelated dipyrromethene (BODIPY) as an energy-harvesting antenna, zinc porphyrin (ZnP) as the primary electron donor, ferrocene (Fc) as a hole-shifting agent, and phenylimidazole-functionalized fulleropyrrolidine (C60 Im) as an electron acceptor, has been synthesized and characterized. Optical absorption and emission, computational structure optimization, and cyclic voltammetry studies were systematically performed to establish the role of each entity in the multistep photochemical reactions. The energy-level diagram established from optical and redox data helped identifying different photochemical events. Selective excitation of BODIPY resulted in efficient singlet energy transfer to the ZnP entity. Ultrafast electron transfer from the (1) ZnP* (formed either as a result of singlet-singlet energy transfer or direct excitation) or (1) C60 * of the coordinated fullerene resulting into the formation of the Fc-(C60 (.) (-) Im:ZnP(.) (+) )-BODIPY radical ion pair was witnessed by femtosecond transient absorption studies. Subsequent hole migration to the ferrocene entity resulted in the Fc(+) -(C60 (.) (+) Im:ZnP)-BODIPY radical ion pair that persisted for 7-15 μs, depending upon the solvent conditions and contributions from the triplet excited states of ZnP and ImC60 , as revealed by the nanosecond transient spectral studies. Better utilization of light energy in generating the long-lived charge-separated state with the help of the present "antenna-reaction-center" model system has been successfully demonstrated.