Three-step cascaded artificial light-harvesting systems with tunable efficiency based on metallacycles

Dengqing Zhang; Man Li; Bei Jiang; Senkun Liu; Jie Yang; Xiang Yang; Ke Ma; Xiaojuan Yuan; Tao Yi

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.08.184

Three-step cascaded artificial light-harvesting systems with tunable efficiency based on metallacycles

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Dec 15;652(Pt B):1494-1502. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.08.184. Epub 2023 Aug 29.

Authors

Dengqing Zhang¹, Man Li², Bei Jiang², Senkun Liu², Jie Yang², Xiang Yang², Ke Ma², Xiaojuan Yuan², Tao Yi³

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, PR China. Electronic address: dqzhang@dhu.edu.cn.
² State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, PR China.
³ State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, PR China. Electronic address: yitao@dhu.edu.cn.

PMID: 37659317
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.08.184

Abstract

It is still challenging to develop multi-step cascaded artificial light-harvesting systems (ALHSs) with tunable efficiency. Here, we designed novel cascaded ALHSs with AIE-active metallacycles as the light-harvesting antenna, Eosin Y (ESY) and sulforhodamine 101 (SR101) as conveyors, near-infrared emissive chlorin-e6 (Ce6) as the final acceptor. The close contact and fair spectral overlap between donor and acceptor molecules at each level ensured the efficient sequential three-step energy transfer. The excited energy was sequentially and efficiently funneled to Ce6 along the cascaded line MTPEPt1 → ESY → SR101 → Ce6. Additionally, a unique strategy for regulating the efficiency of ALHS was illustrated by adjusting hydrophilic and hydrophobic interactions.

Keywords: Aggregation-induced emission; Artificial light-harvesting system; Metallacycle; Three-step; Tunable efficiency.