Issue 42, 2021

Excited-state engineering of oligothiophenes via phosphorus chemistry towards strong fluorescent materials

Abstract

Due to efficient intersystem crossing (ISC), combined with efficient non-radiative processes of the triplet excited state, oligothiophenes generally exhibit very weak photoluminescence. Phosphorus (P)-bridged terthiophenes (P-terThs) and phosphorus (P)-bridged bithiophenes (P-biThs) were synthesized. The diverse and well-defined P-chemistry has been applied to fine tune the photophysical properties of these materials. The asymmetric electronic coupling between the P-center and terThs suppressed the electronic interactions of two terTh and biTh moieties in the ground state S0. Particularly, P-terThs and P-biThs having a positively charged P(+)-center induce pronounced asymmetric electronic environments on the two terThs and two biThs, respectively, which allows relaxation from the initial excited state via symmetry breaking charge transfer (SBCT) to give the charge separated state SSBCT. P-terThs and P-biThs having a positively charged P(+)-center exhibit stronger SBCT than others, which may result in a weaker ISC of oligothiophenes, and consequently lead to the photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs) being as high as 71% and 39%, respectively. The current study uncovered detailed insights on the effects of phosphorus chemistry on the SBCT of oligothiophenes and their resulting effects on the photophysical properties of P-bridged oligothiophenes, which have not been previously addressed in oligothiophenes.

Graphical abstract: Excited-state engineering of oligothiophenes via phosphorus chemistry towards strong fluorescent materials

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
14 Aug 2021
Accepted
24 Sep 2021
First published
25 Sep 2021

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2021,23, 24265-24272

Excited-state engineering of oligothiophenes via phosphorus chemistry towards strong fluorescent materials

Z. Yang, Z. Zhang, C. Xue, K. Yang, R. Gao, N. Yu and Y. Ren, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2021, 23, 24265 DOI: 10.1039/D1CP03737D

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