Photophysical characterization of low-molecular weight organogels for energy transfer and light harvesting

Year: 2011

Authors: Atsbeha T., Bussotti L., Cicchi S., Foggi P., Ghini G., Lascialfari L. Marcelli A.

Autors Affiliation: European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy (LENS), Via Nello Carrara 1, 50019 Sesto F.no, Italy;
Department of Chemistry, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia;
Dipartimento di Chimica’’Ugo Schiff’’ Università di Firenze, Via della Lastruccia 13, 50019 Sesto F.no, Italy;
Dipartimento di Chimica, Università di Perugia, Via Elce di sotto 8, 06100 Perugia, Italy;
ISC-CNR Via Madonna del Piano, 50019 Sesto F.no, Italy

Abstract: The choice of a donor and an acceptor with suitable optical and self-assembly properties is essential in the design of organogel-based light harvesting systems. Organogels can provide supramolecular structures capable of enhancing energy transfer processes. In this work, we present the characterization of N-(naphthalene-1-carboxyamide)-(35,4S)-pyrrolidin-(3,4)-bisdodecyl-carbamoyldiester (1) and N-(4-nitrobenzofurazan-7-amino)-(3S,4S)-pyrrolidin-(3,4)-bisdodecyl-carbamoyldiester (2) which are used as donor and acceptor moieties, respectively. The donor molecule is hardly capable to form a gelon its own but it can be assembled at reasonable concentrations with the acceptor gelator to form a two-component donor-acceptor organogels in cyclohexane. Stable organogels are formed from cyclohexane for gelator concentrations as low as approximate to 10(-3) M. UV-vis and steady-state fluorescence spectroscopies were used to provide a characterization of their molecular interactions. The optical changes observed during the cooling of two-component solutions of these systems are indicative of typical sol-gel transitions. The occurrence of excitation energy transfer processes in the gels is confirmed by comparison of their excitation and absorption spectra. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Journal/Review: JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR STRUCTURE

Volume: 993 (1-3)      Pages from: 459  to: 463

More Information: The authors thank the Electronic and Mechanical workshops of LENS for their support in the temperature dependent measurements. T.A. wishes to acknowledge the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics, Training and Research in Italian Laboratories program for financing his fellowship. A.M. wishes to acknowledge the grant financial support by Regione Toscana under the project EPHODS (POR FSE 2007-2013 obiettivo 2 Asse IV).
KeyWords: Aggregation; Donor and acceptor; Donor molecules; Donor-acceptors; Energy transfer process; Gelators; Light-harvesting; Light-harvesting systems; Low-molecular weight; Organogels; Photophysical characterization; Sol-gel transitions; Supramolecular structure; Two-component, Cooling systems; Cyclohexane; Energy transfer; Fluorescence; Fluorescence spectroscopy; Gels; Naphthalene, Energy harvesting
DOI: 10.1016/j.molstruc.2010.12.046

Citations: 16
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