Photoinduced electron and energy transfer in a new porphyrin-phthalocyanine triad

Complexes of porphyrins, phthalocyanines, and chlorophylls are well suited for modelling both the electron and energy transfer processes in photosynthetic reaction centers and natural chlorophyll complexes. In the present paper, we report the synthesis and photophysical characterization of a novel tetraphenylporphyrin-silicon(IV) phthalocyanine triad, where two porphyrins are linked to the central silicon atom of a phthalocyanine moiety. It has been found that the photophysical properties of the triad (Tr) are strongly affected by two different types of interactions between the porphyrin (P) and the phthalocyanine (Pc) parts of Tr, namely excitation energy transfer (EET) and photoinduced electron transfer (ET). The first one results in appearance of the Pc fluorescence when the P-part was initially excited and plays dominant role in fast depopulation of the first excited singlet state of the P moiety. Another competitive process in quenching of P-part fluorescence is electron transfer, but the probability of it is six times less compared to that of EET. If the first excited singlet state of the Pc-part is populated (directly or via EET), it undergoes fast depopulation via ET to the charge-separated state. As a result, the fluorescence quantum yield of the Pc-part of Tr is approximately three orders of magnitude less compared to that of silicon(IV) phthalocyanine with two axial poly(ethylene glycol) chains (SiPc) used as a reference. Analysis of transient absorption data has shown that charge-recombination occurs with a decay time of 30 ps directly to the ground state.