When things are not as they seem: quantum interference turns molecular electron transfer "rules" upside down

We present an interesting consequence of the differences between cross-conjugated and linearly conjugated molecules: the breakdown of conventional understanding of trends in molecular electron transfer. Interference effects are dominant in cross-conjugated molecules with unusual results: long molecules may have faster rates of electron transfer than short molecules, saturated molecules may have faster rates of electron transfer than conjugated molecules of the same length, and the rate of electron transfer cannot be correlated with energy gaps between the donor and acceptor states and the energy levels of the bridging molecule.     

Light-activated functional mesostructured silica

Mesostructured silica thin films and particles provide highly versatile supports or frameworks for functional materials where a desired function (such as energy transfer, electron transfer, or molecular machines) is induced by molecules deliberately placed in specific regions of the structure. The relatively gentle templated sol–gel synthesis methods allow a wide variety of molecules to be used, and the optical transparency of the framework is very suitable for studies of light-induced functionality. In this paper, three types of functionality are used to obtain fundamental understanding of the materials themselves and to develop active materials that can trap and release molecules from the pores upon command. Photo-induced energy transfer is used to verify that molecules can be placed in specific spatially separated regions of the framework; fluorescence resonance energy transfer is used as a molecular ruler to measure quantitatively the distance between pairs of molecules. Secondly, photo-induced electron transfer is used to obtain fundamental information about the electrical insulating properties of the framework. Finally, two types of molecular machines, a light-driven impeller and a light activated nanovalve, are described. Both machines contain moving parts attached to solid supports and do useful work. The valves trap and release molecules from the mesopores, and the impellers expel molecules from the pores. Applications of the materials to drug delivery and the release of drug molecules inside living cells is described.     

Excited Electron–Hole States in Molecular Chains

The eigenvalues and the eigenfunctions of molecular excitons, charge-transfer excitons, and electron–hole pairs have been found in the approximation of electron and hole transfer between the lowest unoccupied and highest occupied orbitals in a rigid molecular chain of identical photosensitive molecules, the recognized model of organic solar cells. It has been shown that as the Coulomb binding energy decreases, the wave functions become superposition of functions of the increasing number of sites and the decay time, determined by electron or hole transitions, is shorter that the transfer time of the exciton as a whole, so that energy transfer and charge transfer become interrelated processes.     

Electron dopable molecular wires based on the extended viologens

Facile electron transfer in molecules with one dimension greatly exceeding the other two is essential in the development of new molecular electronic devices as these molecules can serve as so-called molecular wires. In this communication the electrochemical behavior of a series of molecules with multiple extended viologen moieties has been studied. We show that the electron transfer in the shortest wire is due to reduction of two identical communicating pyridinium moieties leading to a full charge delocalization, whereas the electron transfer in molecules with n≥ 2 is due to reduction of initially non-communicating centers. This was confirmed by digital simulation of cyclic voltammograms. All studied molecules accept reversibly at least four and up to ten electrons without any long-term chemical changes, which is a prerequisite for their future application. Chemical stability of these molecules after multiple electron transfer was confirmed by in situ UV-Vis spectroelectrochemical detection.     

Energy transfer followed by electron transfer(ETET) endows a TPE-NBD dyad with enhanced environmental sensitivity

Energy transfer and electron transfer are both fundamental mechanisms enabling numerous functional materials and applications. While most materials systems employ either energy transfer or electron transfer, the combined effect of energy and electron transfer processes in a single donor/acceptor system remains largely unexplored. Herein, we demonstrated the energy transfer followed by electron transfer(ETET) process in a molecular dyad TPE-NBD. Due to energy transfer, the fluorescence of TPE-NBD was greatly enhanced in non-polar solvents. In contrast, polar solvents activated subsequent electron transfer and markedly quenched the emission of TPE-NBD. Consequently, ETET endows TPE-NBD with significant polarity sensitivities. We expect that employing ETET could generate many functional materials with unprecedented properties, i.e., for single laser powered multicolor fluorescence imaging and sensing.     

Modulation of Energy Conversion Processes in Carbonaceous Molecular Bearings

The energetics and photodynamics of carbonaceous molecular bearings with discrete molecular structures were investigated. A series of supramolecular bearings comprising belt‐persistent tubular cycloarylene and fullerene molecules accepted photonic stimuli to afford charge‐separated species via a photoinduced electron transfer process. The energy conversion processes associated with the photoexcitation, however, differed depending on the molecular structure. A π‐lengthened tubular molecule allowed for the emergence of an intermediary triplet excited state at the bearing, which should lead to an energy conversion to thermal energy. On the other hand, low‐lying charge‐separated species induced by an endohedral lithium ion in fullerene enabled back electron transfer processes to occur without involving triplet excited species. The structure–photodynamics relationship was analyzed in terms of the Marcus theory to reveal a large electronic coupling in this dynamic supramolecular system.     

Competition of proton and electron transfers in gas-phase reactions of hydrogen-containing dications CHX2+ (X = F, Cl, Br, I) with atoms, nonpolar and polar molecules

The competition between proton and electron transfer in reactions of mass-selected dications CHX2+ (X = F, Cl, Br, and I) with rare gas atoms (Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe) and selected molecular reagents (N2, O2, CO, H2O, and HCl) is studied in the gas phase. In the ion-molecule reactions of CHX2+ dications with atoms and nonpolar molecules, it is the energy balance of electron transfer that acts as the decisive factor: when the exothermicity of electron transfer exceeds 2 eV, this process predominates at the expense of bond-forming proton transfer. In marked contrast, the reactions between these triatomic dications and polar molecules are governed for the benefit of the thermochemically more favored products resulting from proton transfer.     

环糊精-卟啉超分子体系的构筑及应用进展

环糊精具有分子识别和选择包结客体分子的独特性质,而卟啉具有模拟酶催化、电子转移和光能转移等功能,本工作通过对环糊精-卟啉超分子体系构筑方式的介绍,详细综述了环糊精-卟啉超分子体系在模拟酶催化、生命科学、药物控释、电子转移过程等方面的应用,认为环糊精-卟啉超分子体系具有卟啉和环糊精双重性质的优点,而以键联环糊精-卟啉为主体分子构筑的超分子体系能更有效地模拟生物酶,表现出优异的区域和立体选择性,在仿生催化方面将具有更广泛的应用前景.     

价键理论新进展

概要介绍了现代价键理论的几个主要方法,并讨论了它们各自的特点及其发展现状,并重点介绍了键表方法的基本理论、计算程序及一些应用。     

Development of bioinspired artificial photosynthetic systems

The specific objective of this review is to describe recent development of bioinspired artificial photosynthetic systems and their applications. First, multi-step electron-transfer systems composed of electron donor-acceptor ensembles are presented, mimicking functions of the photosynthetic reaction center. However, a significant amount of energy is lost during the multi-step electron-transfer processes. Then, as an alternative to conventional charge-separation functional molecular models based on multi-step long-range electron transfer within redox cascades, simple electron donor-acceptor dyads linked by covalent or non-covalent bonding have been developed to attain a long-lived and high-energy charge-separated state without significant loss of excitation energy. Such simple molecular dyads, capable of fast charge separation but extremely slow charge recombination, have significant advantages with regard to synthetic feasibility, providing a variety of applications including construction of organic solar cells and development of efficient photocatalytic systems for the solar energy conversion.     

A distance-dependent parameterization of the extended Hubbard model for conjugated and aromatic hydrocarbons derived from stretched ethene

The Hubbard model, which is widely used in physics but is mostly unfamiliar to chemists, provides an attractive yet simple model for chemistry beyond the self consistent field molecular orbital approximation. The Hubbard model adds an effective electron-electron repulsion when two electrons occupy the same atomic orbital to the familiar Hückel Hamiltonian. Thus it breaks the degeneracy between excited singlet and triplet states and allows an explicit treatment of electron correlation. We show how to evaluate the parameters of the model from high-level ab initio calculations on two-atom fragments and then to transfer the parameters to large molecules and polymers where accurate ab initio calculations are difficult or impossible. The recently developed MS-RASPT2 method is used to generate accurate potential energy curves for ethene as a function of carbon-carbon bond length, which are used to parameterize the model for conjugated hydrocarbons. Test applications to several conjugated/aromatic molecules show that even though the model is very simple, it is capable of reasonably accurate predictions for bond lengths, and predicts molecular excitation energies in reasonable agreement with those from the MS-RASPT2 method.     

Electronic and optical properties of edge modified peritetracene: a DFT study

Peritetracene (PTA) molecules have promising applications in organic electronics and organic light-emitting diodes, but the major constraints come from their poor stability with higher energy gap. We have investigated the stability, electronic, and optical properties of different electron-donating- and electron-withdrawing-substituted PTA molecule groups using density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) methods. On substituting suitable electron donor and acceptor groups, the energy gap of PTA molecules reduces up to 0.37 eV with an increase in their stability. The stabilities of considered PTA molecules have been investigated using the distribution pattern of frontier molecular orbital energies. The charge transfer properties with smaller ionization potential and larger electron affinity for PTA molecule have been evaluated using Koopmans’ theorem. Enhancement in dipole moment, polarizability, and hyperpolarizability of PTA substituted with electron-donating groups shows the presence of NLO properties. Also, we have investigated the spectroscopic properties of different electron-donating- and electron-withdrawing-substituted PTA molecule groups. Our spectroscopic properties show the bathochromic shift and small hypsochromic shifts in wavelengths of PTA with substituents groups. It is therefore concluded that the –NCH₃ and –NO₂ substituent groups on PTA are observed to have the strongest and highest stability than the other substituent groups considered.

     

基于PET过程的分子开关型荧光传感器研究进展

基于PET过程的分子开关型荧光传感器研究进展;光诱导电子转移;给体;受体;分子开关;光物理技术     

An inner-sphere reorganization model of hetero-exchange electron transfer reaction of diatomic reactants

An accurate theoretical scheme for obtaining directly the inner-sphere reorganization energies of the hetero-exchange electron transfer reactions from ionization potentials and electron affinities is first reported in this paper. Ionization potentials and electron affinities are alternatively obtained from the Rydberg spectroscopic data via a numerical procedure for some diatomic molecules. The inner-sphere reorganization energy values are calculated for the hetero-exchange electron transfer reactions (AB + CD⁺ → AB⁺ + CD) of diatomic molecules and are compared with those from other approximate methods.     

Unusual kinematics-driven chemistry: cleaving C-H but not COO-H bonds with hyperthermal protons to synthesize tailor-made molecular films

Unconventional reaction-design strategies have been developed to exploit the intriguing kinematics that occur when adsorbed organic molecules are bombarded by a beam of hyperthermal protons: kinematic energy transfer is only effective in H-->H collisions and thus only C-H bonds are cleaved. This process yields a cross-linked molecular film with its chemistry governed by the selection of appropriate precursor molecules. Unlike the conventional wet-chemistry synthesis of cross-linked polymeric films, this new route uses no chemical initiators, additives, nor catalysts, and only requires a proton beam with a kinetic energy of a few electron volts in a dry-process mode compatible with molecular-device fabrication. The reaction designs are expressed unconventionally: reaction energy is tuned by the kinetic energy of the proton beam and reactant supply is controlled precisely by the proton fluence. However, conventional considerations such as bond-strength effects on kinematic outcomes and branching-ratio statistics are also important and they can extend the reaction applicability of the kinematics concept. For example, taking advantage of the fact that COO-H bonds are stronger than C-H bonds, we show, with practical reaction conditions, synthesis results, and surface analysis using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy, that we can break C-H bonds without breaking COO-H and other bonds, in the production of cross-linked molecular layers with any desirable COOH concentration and with no ester nor other chemical contaminations. The new reaction-design strategies are also applicable to the synthesis of molecular layers with other functionalities such as OH, and to the synthesis of a mixture of functionalities, such as OH/COOH, with a controllable concentration ratio.     

Photosynthetic Antenna–Reaction Center Mimicry by Using Boron Dipyrromethene Sensitizers

Various molecular and supramolecular systems have been synthesized and characterized recently to mimic the functions of photosynthesis, in which solar energy conversion is achieved. Artificial photosynthesis consists of light‐harvesting and charge‐separation processes together with catalytic units of water oxidation and reduction. Among the organic molecules, derivatives of BF₂‐chelated dipyrromethene (BODIPY), “porphyrin’s little sister”, have been widely used in constructing these artificial photosynthetic models due to their unique properties. In these photosynthetic models, BODIPYs act as not only excellent antenna molecules, but also as electron‐donor and ‐acceptor molecules in both the covalently linked molecular and supramolecular systems formed by axial coordination, hydrogen bonding, or crown ether complexation. The relationships between the structures and photochemical reactivities of these novel molecular and supramolecular systems are discussed in relation to the efficiency of charge separation and charge recombination. Femto‐ and nanosecond transient absorption and photoelectrochemical techniques have been employed in these studies to give clear evidence for the occurrence of energy‐ and electron‐transfer reactions and to determine their rates and efficiencies.     

Toward transparent molecular wires: electron and energy transfer in transition metal derivatized conducting polymers

A great deal of research has concentrated on long range electron and energy transport in transition metal-based systems, including molecular donor-acceptor assemblies, electron and energy transfer cascades, dendrimers, and derivatized polymer systems. In an effort to improve efficiencies for electron and energy transport over large distances, several groups have now turned to conjugated systems. Several challenges exist to incorporating conducting materials/polymers in the study of photoinduced electron and energy transfer: solubility and processibility of the materials, thermal stability and limitations on direct spectroscopic characterization due to band gap absorptions. We have prepared a new series of conducting materials that provides for direct incorporation of chromophores and electrophores within the backbone of a conducting polymer. Energy transfer dynamics between conducting polymer bridges and porphyrin or metal-to-ligand charge transfer (MLCT) chromophores can be controlled through intermolecular interactions in solid vs solution samples. We have also developed a methodology to incorporate transmissive benzothiophene-type polymers such as polyisothianaphthene (PITN) within a copolymer assembly. These new materials are now being used to investigate long range electronic coupling and have potential applications that range from artificial photosynthesis to light emitting diodes.     

A first principles study on organic molecule encapsulated boron nitride nanotubes

The electronic structures of boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) doped with organic molecules are investigated using density functional theory. An electrophilic molecule introduces acceptor states in the wide gap of BNNT close to the valence band edge, which makes the doped system a p-type semiconductor. However, with typical nucleophilic organic molecules encapsulation, only deep occupied molecular states but no shallow donor states are observed. There is a significant electron transfer from a BNNT to an electrophilic molecule, while the charge transfer between a nucleophilic molecule and a BNNT is negligible. When both electrophilic and nucleophilic molecules are encapsulated in the same BNNT, a large charge transfer between the two kinds of molecules occurs. The resulting small energy gap can strongly modify the transport and optical properties of the system.     

自组装单分子膜在电化学电子转移过程中的应用

综述了自组装单分子膜作为模型体系在电化学电极过程中长程电子转移方面应用的一些重要研究成果。重点介绍了电子转移距离、电活性中心的微环境、膜表面分子的设计和状态等因素对长程电子转移的影响情况。展望了该领域今后的发展方向。