Issue 3, 2020

Controlling the structure and photophysics of fluorophore dimers using multiple cucurbit[8]uril clampings

Abstract

A modular strategy has been employed to develop a new class of fluorescent molecules, which generates discrete, dimeric stacked fluorophores upon complexation with multiple cucurbit[8]uril macrocycles. The multiple constraints result in a “static” complex (remaining as a single entity for more than 30 ms) and facilitate fluorophore coupling in the ground state, showing a significant bathochromic shift in absorption and emission. This modular design is surprisingly applicable and flexible and has been validated through an investigation of nine different fluorophore cores ranging in size, shape, and geometric variation of their clamping modules. All fluorescent dimers evaluated can be photo-excited to atypical excimer-like states with elongated excited lifetimes (up to 37 ns) and substantially high quantum yields (up to 1). This strategy offers a straightforward preparation of discrete fluorophore dimers, providing promising model systems with explicitly stable dimeric structures and tunable photophysical features, which can be utilized to study various intermolecular processes.

Graphical abstract: Controlling the structure and photophysics of fluorophore dimers using multiple cucurbit[8]uril clampings

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
11 Sep 2019
Accepted
24 Nov 2019
First published
06 Dec 2019
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2020,11, 812-825

Controlling the structure and photophysics of fluorophore dimers using multiple cucurbit[8]uril clampings

G. Wu, Y. J. Bae, M. Olesińska, D. Antón-García, I. Szabó, E. Rosta, M. R. Wasielewski and O. A. Scherman, Chem. Sci., 2020, 11, 812 DOI: 10.1039/C9SC04587B

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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