Photoinduced Electron Transfer as a Probe for the Folding Behavior of Dimethylsilylene-Spaced Alternating Donor–Acceptor Oligomers and Polymers

Abstract

A series of oligomers and polymers having dimethylsilylene-spaced alternating 4-aminostyrene donor and stilbene acceptor chromophores (two to one) are regioselectively synthesized, and the two donor chromophores are separated by different bridges between two donors. Photophysical tools have been used to examine the folding behavior of these copolymers. Both steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopic measurements were examined. The relative intensities (ICT/ILE) between emission from charge-separated state (CT emission) and local excited emission of acceptor chromophore (LE emission) increase with increasing number of repeating units, and reach a plateau, when the linkers between the two aminostyrene chromophores are trimethylene bridges. Replacements of these by dimethylene or tetramethylene linker reduce the relative intensities of CT emission of the polymers, owing to the different folding behavior of these polymers. The CT emission intensity of the polymer with rigid piperazine linkers is much lower than that with trimethylene-bridged copolymer of the same degree of polymerization. Slight conformational change of these polymers would lead to slight variation of the distance between donor and acceptor chromophores so that the nonadiabatic interactions in the excited state between donor–acceptor pairs in these oligomers and polymers would be perturbed by such change of conformations.