Influence of Anion Delocalization on Electron Transfer in a Covalent Porphyrin Donor–Perylenediimide Dimer Acceptor System

Photodriven electron transfer from a donor excited state to an assembly of electronically coupled acceptors has been proposed to enhance charge transfer efficiency in functional organic electronic materials. However, the circumstances under which this may occur are difficult to investigate in a controlled manner in disordered donor–acceptor materials. Here we investigate the effects of anion delocalization on electron transfer using zinc meso-tetraphenylporphyrin (ZnTPP) as a donor and a perylene-3,4:9,10-bis(dicarboximide) dimer as the acceptor (PDI2). The PDI units of the dimer are positioned in a cofacial orientation relative to one another by attachment of the imide group of each PDI to the 4- and 5-positions of a xanthene spacer. Furthermore, the distal imide group of one PDI is linked to the para-position of one ZnTPP phenyl group to yield ZnTPP-PDI2. The data for the dimer are compared to two different ZnTPP-PDI monomer reference systems designed to probe electron transfer to each of the individual PDI molecules comprising PDI2. The electron transfer rate from the ZnTPP lowest excited singlet state to PDI2 is increased by 50% relative to that in ZnTPP-PDI, when the data are corrected for the statistics of having two electron acceptors. Femtosecond transient IR absorption spectroscopy provides evidence that the observed enhancement in charge separation results from electron transfer producing a delocalized PDI2 anion.