Controlled Photooxidation via Singlet Oxygen Generation by Triplet Harvesting in a Heavy Atom Free Pure Organic Dithienylethene-Naphthalene Diimide.

Abstract

Noninvasive control over the reversible generation of singlet oxygen (1O2) has found the enormous practical implications in the field of biomedical science. However, metal-free pure organic emitters, connected with a photoswitch, capable of generating "on-demand" 1O2 via triplet harvesting remain exceedingly rare; therefore, the utilization of these organic materials for the reversible control of singlet oxygen production remains at its infancy. Herein, an ambient triplet mediated emission in quinoline-dithienylethene (DTE)-core-substituted naphthalene diimide (cNDI) derivative is unveiled via delayed fluorescence. The quinoline-DTE-cNDI triad displayed enhanced photoswitching efficiency via double FRET mechanism. It was found to have direct utilization in controlled photosensitized organic transformations via efficient generation of singlet oxygen (yield ΦΔ~0.55 in DCM and 0.73 in methanol). The designed molecule exhibits a long-lived emission (τ∼1.1 μs) and very small singlet-triplet splitting (ΔEST) of 0.13 eV empowering it to display delayed fluorescence. Comprehensive steady state and time-resolved emission spectroscopy (TRES) analyses along with DFT calculations offer detailed understandings into the excited-state manifolds of organic compound and energy transfer (ET) pathways involved in 1O2 generation.