| 1. |
- Abbafati, Cristiana, et al.
(author)
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- 2020
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)
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| 2. |
- Kunnus, Kristjan, et al.
(author)
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Vibrational wavepacket dynamics in Fe carbene photosensitizer determined with femtosecond X-ray emission and scattering
- 2020
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In: Nature Communications. - : Springer Nature. - 2041-1723. ; 11:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The non-equilibrium dynamics of electrons and nuclei govern the function of photoactive materials. Disentangling these dynamics remains a critical goal for understanding photoactive materials. Here we investigate the photoinduced dynamics of the [Fe(bmip)2]2+ photosensitizer, where bmip = 2,6-bis(3-methyl-imidazole-1-ylidine)-pyridine, with simultaneous femtosecond-resolution Fe Kα and Kβ X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) and X-ray solution scattering (XSS). This measurement shows temporal oscillations in the XES and XSS difference signals with the same 278 fs period oscillation. These oscillations originate from an Fe-ligand stretching vibrational wavepacket on a triplet metal-centered (3MC) excited state surface. This 3MC state is populated with a 110 fs time constant by 40% of the excited molecules while the rest relax to a 3MLCT excited state. The sensitivity of the Kα XES to molecular structure results from a 0.7% average Fe-ligand bond length shift between the 1 s and 2p core-ionized states surfaces.
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| 3. |
- Tatsuno, Hideyuki, et al.
(author)
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Hot Branching Dynamics in a Light-Harvesting Iron Carbene Complex Revealed by Ultrafast X-ray Emission Spectroscopy
- 2020
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In: Angewandte Chemie - International Edition. - : Wiley. - 1433-7851 .- 1521-3773. ; 59:1, s. 364-372
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Iron N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) complexes have received a great deal of attention recently because of their growing potential as light sensitizers or photocatalysts. We present a sub-ps X-ray spectroscopy study of an FeIINHC complex that identifies and quantifies the states involved in the deactivation cascade after light absorption. Excited molecules relax back to the ground state along two pathways: After population of a hot 3MLCT state, from the initially excited 1MLCT state, 30 % of the molecules undergo ultrafast (150 fs) relaxation to the 3MC state, in competition with vibrational relaxation and cooling to the relaxed 3MLCT state. The relaxed 3MLCT state then decays much more slowly (7.6 ps) to the 3MC state. The 3MC state is rapidly (2.2 ps) deactivated to the ground state. The 5MC state is not involved in the deactivation pathway. The ultrafast partial deactivation of the 3MLCT state constitutes a loss channel from the point of view of photochemical efficiency and highlights the necessity to screen transition-metal complexes for similar ultrafast decays to optimize photochemical performance.
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| 4. |
- Kunnus, Kristjan, et al.
(author)
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Chemical control of competing electron transfer pathways in iron tetracyano-polypyridyl photosensitizers
- 2020
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In: Chemical Science. - : ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY. - 2041-6520 .- 2041-6539. ; 11:17, s. 4360-4373
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Photoinduced intramolecular electron transfer dynamics following metal-to-ligand charge-transfer (MLCT) excitation of [Fe(CN)(4)(2,2 '-bipyridine)](2-) (1), [Fe(CN)(4)(2,3-bis(2-pyridyl)pyrazine)](2-) (2) and [Fe(CN)(4)(2,2 '-bipyrimidine)](2-) (3) were investigated in various solvents with static and time-resolved UV-Visible absorption spectroscopy and Fe 2p3d resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS). This series of polypyridyl ligands, combined with the strong solvatochromism of the complexes, enables the (MLCT)-M-1 vertical energy to be varied from 1.64 eV to 2.64 eV and the (MLCT)-M-3 lifetime to range from 180 fs to 67 ps. The (MLCT)-M-3 lifetimes in 1 and 2 decrease exponentially as the MLCT energy increases, consistent with electron transfer to the lowest energy triplet metal-centred ((MC)-M-3) excited state, as established by the Tanabe-Sugano analysis of the Fe 2p3d RIXS data. In contrast, the (MLCT)-M-3 lifetime in 3 changes non-monotonically with MLCT energy, exhibiting a maximum. This qualitatively distinct behaviour results from a competing (MLCT)-M-3 -> ground state (GS) electron transfer pathway that exhibits energy gap law behaviour. The (MLCT)-M-3 -> GS pathway involves nuclear tunnelling for the high-frequency polypyridyl breathing mode (h nu = 1530 cm(-1)), which is most displaced for complex 3, making this pathway significantly more efficient. Our study demonstrates that the excited state relaxation mechanism of Fe polypyridyl photosensitizers can be readily tuned by ligand and solvent environment. Furthermore, our study reveals that extending charge transfer lifetimes requires control of the relative energies of the (MLCT)-M-3 and the (MC)-M-3 states and suppression of the intramolecular distortion of the acceptor ligand in the (MLCT)-M-3 excited state.
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