title: Does a nitrogen matter? Synthesis and photoinduced electron transfer of perylenediimide donors covalently linked to C59N and C60 acceptors.
abstract: The first perylenediimide (PDI) covalently linked to an azafullerene (C59N) is described. PDI-C59N and PDI-C60 dyads where PDI acts as an electron-donor moiety have been synthesized by connection of the balls to the PDI 1-bay position. Photoexcitation of the PDI unit in both systems results in formation of the charge-separated state by photoinduced electron transfer from the singlet excited state of the PDI moiety to the C59N or to the C60 moiety. The charge-separated state has a lifetime of 400 ps in the case of PDI-C59N and 120 ps for the PDI-C60 dyad in benzonitrile at 298 K. This result has significant implications for the design of organic solar cells based on covalent donor-acceptor systems using C59N as an electron acceptor, indicating that longer-lived charge-separated states can be attained using C59N systems instead of C60 systems.
authors.affiliation: Área de Química Orgánica Instituto de Bioingeniería, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Elche, Spain. asastre@umh.es.
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Martín-Gomis
authors.forename: Georgios
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rotas
authors.forename: Kei
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ohkubo
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fernández-Lázaro
authors.forename: Shunichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fukuzumi
authors.forename: Nikos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tagmatarchis
authors.forename: Ángela
authors.initials: Á
authors.lastname: Sastre-Santos