Tailoring sensitization properties and improving near-infrared photon upconversion performance through alloying in superatomic molecular Au25 nanoclusters

Abstract

Noble-metal nanoclusters (NCs) protected by organic ligands have recently come to the forefront as potent triplet sensitizers for photon upconversion (UC) via triplet–triplet annihilation (TTA), owing to their capacity for atomic-level photophysical property customization. Among these, the rod-shaped bi-icosahedral [Au₂₅(PPh₃)₁₀(S-C₂H₄Ph)₅Cl₂]²⁺ (Au-rod) NC is a particularly iconic superatomic molecular NC, recently identified as a near-infrared (NIR)-absorbing sensitizer for TTA-UC. In this study, we synthesized Cu-doped NCs, [Au_25−xCu_x(PPh₃)₁₀(S-C₂H₄Ph)₅Cl₂]²⁺ (AuCu-rod), and paired them with 9,10-bis(phenylethynyl)anthracene (BPEA) annihilator/emitter to explore the impact of Cu-doping on the triplet sensitization and NIR-UC performance. The triplet state of AuCu-rod, with lifetime of 3 μs, exhibited a modest blue shift compared to the Au-rod, resulting in the increment in the driving force for triplet energy transfer (TET) to the BPEA acceptor. The TET rate constant was determined to be 5.0 × 10⁷ M⁻¹ s⁻¹, which is an order of magnitude higher than the rate constant for the Au-rod/BPEA pair. This improvement has led to a remarkable increase in the TET efficiency. Notably, the AuCu-rod/BPEA pair facilitated the efficient UC of 805 nm NIR light into 510 nm visible light, realizing a large anti-Stokes shift close to 0.9 eV. The UC internal quantum yield of this combination was determined to be 2.33 ± 0.05%, marking a fivefold enhancement over the Au-rod sensitizer (0.49%). Thus, alloying NC sensitizers offers a promising route to enhance UC performance by tuning the triplet state energy and optimizing the compatibility between the sensitizer and annihilator. Additionally, in this series of experiments, the formation of small amounts of BPEA microaggregates was observed. These aggregates did not undergo singlet fission and could retain multiple long-lived triplet excitons. This characteristic facilitated TTA among triplet excitons, resulting in efficient NIR-to-visible UC emission.