Classification of novel thiazole compounds for sensitizing Ru-polypyridine complexes for artificial light harvesting

► First systematic study of Förster radii in thiazole (donor)-Ru-polypyridine (acceptor) pairs. ► Large Förster radii are observed (up to 40 Å) comparable to systems optimized for FRET microscopy. ► Ru-polypyridine complexes dressed by thiazole-antennas as primary electron donors in artificial photosynthetic systems.