Photoinduced charge-separation and charge-recombination processes of fullerene[60] dyads covalently connected with phenothiazine and its trimer.

Photoinduced charge-separation and charge-recombination processes of fullerene[60] dyads covalently connected with phenothiazine and its trimer (PTZ n -C 60, n = 1 and 3) with a short amide linkage were investigated. A time-resolved fluorescence study provided evidence of charge separation via the excited singlet state of a C 60 moiety ( (1)C 60*), which displayed high efficiencies in various solvents; Phi (S) CS (quantum yield of charge separation via (1)C 60*) = 0.59 (toluene) to 0.87 (DMF) for PTZ 1-C 60 and 0.78 (toluene) to 0.91 (DMF) for PTZ 3-C 60. The transient absorption measurement with a 6 ns time resolution in the visible and near-IR regions showed evidence of the generation of radical ion pairs in relatively polar solvents for both dyads. In nonpolar toluene, only PTZ 1- (3)C 60* was observed for PTZ 1-C 60, whereas PTZ 3- (3)C 60* as well as the radical ion pair state in equilibrium were observed for PTZ 3-C 60. The radical ion pairs had relatively long lifetimes: 60 (DMF) to 910 ns ( o-dichlorobenzene) for (PTZ) 1 (*+)-C 60 (*-) and 230 (PhCN) to 380 ns ( o-dichlorobenzene) for (PTZ) 3 (*+)-C 60 (*-). The small reorganization energy (lambda) and the electronic coupling element (| V|) were estimated by the temperature dependence of the charge-recombination rates, i.e., lambda = 0.53 eV and | V| = 1.6 cm (-1) for (PTZ) 3 (*+)-C 60 (*-).