Generation of singlet oxygen when radiation interacts with molecular structures: review

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the investigation of singlet-oxygen generation processes in solutions, suspensions, and solid-phase structures of fullerenes and other carbon structures, and on the surface of metal oxides and sulfides, as well as in the absence of photosensitizers, by the direct excitation of encounter complexes of molecular oxygen with the environment when test samples are irradiated by the light of pulsed and continuous optical pumping. This involves studying both singlet-oxygen generation processes and excited-state quenching mechanisms. The singlet-oxygen generation efficiency achieved in this project can be of practical interest both for physical-and-engineering systems such as a fullerene–oxygen–iodine laser and for a number of other usages of singlet oxygen—in particular, for biology and medicine and for systems for the cleaning and decontamination of air—both household systems and special-purpose systems.