(Invited) Photoinduced Electron Transfer in Dyads Involving Complexes of C60 and Nanohoops. Effect of π-Extension and Aromaticity of the Nanohoop

Abstract

Conversion of the sunlight into chemical energy is considered to be one of the most important and fundamental chemical reactions in nature. A broad variety of artificial photosynthetic systems based on dyads, triads and up to pentads involving electron donor and acceptor moieties have been designed and synthesized in order to investigate artificial photoinduced energy and electron transfer processes. One type of dyads with potential applications in solar cells is the one combining C60 complexed with nanohoops.[1] In this work, we discuss a series of computational studies that involves the photoinduced charge separation in complexes of C60 and Li+@C60 with a series of different nanohoops, such as the [10]cycloparaphenylene ([10]CPP) ring,[2] π-extended CPPs such as the hexa-peri-benzocoronene (HBC) or the tribenzo[fj,ij,rst]pentaphene (TBP),[3] and [n]cyclodibenzopentalenes ([n]CDBPs) as antiaromatic curved nanorings.[4] The analysis of complexes of C60 with nanohoops having different degrees of π-conjugation and aromaticity allow us to discuss the effect in the charge transfer separation and recombination on the level of π-extension and aromaticity present in the nanohoops.