Oligo(ethylene glycol)/alkyl-modified Chromophore Assemblies for Photon Upconversion in Water

Rena Haruki, Hironori Kouno, Masanori Hosoyamada, Taku Ogawa, Nobuhiro Yanai, Nobuo Kimizuka

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    4 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Molecular self-assembly is a powerful means to construct nanoscale materials with advanced photophysical properties. Although the protection of the photo-excited states from oxygen quenching is a critical issue, it still has been in an early phase of development. In this work, we demonstrate that a simple and typical molecular design for aqueous supramolecular assembly, modification of the chromophoric unit with hydrophilic oligo(ethylene glycol) chains and hydrophobic alkyl chains, is effective to avoid oxygen quenching of triplet–triplet annihilation-based photon upconversion (TTA-UC). While a TTA-UC emission is completely quenched when the donor and acceptor are molecularly dispersed in chloroform, their aqueous co-assemblies exhibit a clear upconverted emission in air-saturated water even under extremely low chromophore concentrations down to 40 μm. The generalization of this nano-encapsulation approach offers new functions and applications using oxygen-sensitive species for supramolecular chemistry.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1723-1728
    Number of pages6
    JournalChemistry - An Asian Journal
    Volume14
    Issue number10
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - May 15 2019

    All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

    • Biochemistry
    • Organic Chemistry

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