Photoinduced Energy and Electron Transfer in a ‘Two-Point’ Bound Panchromatic, Near-Infrared-Absorbing Bis-styrylBODIPY(Zinc Porphyrin)₂ – Fullerene Self-Assembled Supramolecular Conjugate

Structurally well-defined self-assembled supramolecular multi-modular donor-acceptor conjugates play a significant role in furthering our understanding of photoinduced energy and electron transfer events occurring in nature, e. g., in the antenna-reaction centers of photosynthesis and their applications in light energy harvesting. However, building such multi-modular systems capable of mimicking the early events of photosynthesis has been synthetically challenging, causing a major hurdle for its growth. Often, multi-modularity is brought in by combining both covalent and noncovalent approaches. In the present study, we have developed such an approach wherein a π-extended conjugated molecular cleft, two zinc(II)porphyrin bearing bisstyrylBODIPY (dyad, 1), has been synthesized. The binding of 1 via a ‘two-point’ metal-ligand coordination of a bis-pyridyl fulleropyrrolidine (2), forming a stable self-assembled supramolecular complex (1 : 2), has been established. The self-assembled supramolecular complex has been fully characterized by a suite of physico-chemical methods, including TD-DFT studies. From the established energy diagram, both energy and electron transfer events were envisioned. In dyad 1, selective excitation of zinc(II)porphyrin leads to efficient singlet-singlet excitation transfer to (bisstyrly)BODIPY with an energy transfer rate constant, k_EnT of 2.56×10¹² s⁻¹. In complex 1 : 2, photoexcitation of zinc(II)porphyrin results in ultrafast photoinduced electron transfer with a charge separation rate constant, k_CS of 2.83×10¹¹ s^−1, and a charge recombination rate constant, k_CR of 2.51×10⁹ s⁻¹. For excitation at 730 nm corresponding to bisstyrylBODIPY, similar results are obtained, where a biexponential decay yielded estimated values of k_CS 3.44×10¹¹ s⁻¹ and 2.97×10¹⁰ s⁻¹, and a k_CR value of 2.10×10¹⁰ s⁻¹. The newly built self-assembled supramolecular complex has been shown to successfully mimic the early events of the photosynthetic antenna-reaction center events.