Photochemistry and Photophysics of Coordination Compounds
Photochemistry and Photophysics of Coordination Compounds
Photochemistry and Photophysics of Coordination Compounds
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246 M.T. Indelli et al.<br />
spectively. A clear advantage <strong>of</strong> the tethered Ru/DNA/Rh system is that both<br />
the donor <strong>and</strong> acceptor are covalently held in a well-defined fixed distance<br />
range. On the other h<strong>and</strong>, the report <strong>of</strong> Murphy et al. was limited by the<br />
exclusive use <strong>of</strong> steady-state emission spectroscopy. A lower limit for the photoinduced<br />
electron transfer rate (> 3 × 10 9 s –1 ) has been obtained measuring<br />
the quenching <strong>of</strong> the Ru(II) metal-to-lig<strong>and</strong> charge transfer (MLCT) emission<br />
by the tethered Rh(III) acceptor.<br />
In a subsequent investigation, untethered Ru/DNA/Rh <strong>and</strong> related systems<br />
were studied by Barton et al. [160] using ultrafast laser spectroscopy. The<br />
study was focused mainly on the system shown in Fig. 14 constituted by ∆-<br />
Ru(phen)2dppz 2+ as excited donor, ∆-Rh(phi)2bpy 3+ as acceptor intercalated<br />
in the calf thymus DNA with the aim to determine the rate <strong>of</strong> excited-state<br />
electron transfer (ket) that occurs from the lowest-lying MLCT state <strong>of</strong> the Ru<br />
donor, <strong>and</strong> the recombination electron transfer reaction (krec).<br />
Fig. 14 Photoinduced electron transfer processes taking place between Ru(phen)2dppz 2+<br />
<strong>and</strong> Rh(phi)2bpy 3+ DNA intercalators<br />
Efficient <strong>and</strong> rapid quenching <strong>of</strong> luminescence <strong>of</strong> the Ru complex in the<br />
presence <strong>of</strong> Rh complex, even at surprisingly low acceptor loading on the<br />
DNA duplex was observed. All the experimental observations were consistent<br />
with complete intercalation <strong>of</strong> the donor <strong>and</strong> acceptor in DNA. A comparative<br />
experiment employing Ru(NH3) 3+<br />
6 complex as electron acceptor, clearly<br />
indicates that much less efficient quenching is observed when the quencher<br />
is groove bound rather intercalated. To deepen the underst<strong>and</strong>ing <strong>of</strong> the<br />
mechanism <strong>of</strong> the electron transfer processes, the authors examined the photoinduced<br />
charge separation (ket) <strong>and</strong> recombination electron transfer (krec)<br />
reactions on the picosecond time scale by monitoring both the kinetics <strong>of</strong><br />
the emission decay <strong>and</strong> the kinetics <strong>of</strong> the recovery <strong>of</strong> ground state absorption<br />
<strong>of</strong> Ru(II) donor (Fig. 14). Time-correlated single photon counting failed<br />
to detect the lifetime <strong>of</strong> the excited state, clearly indicating that luminescent<br />
quenching by electron transfer proceeds faster (ket > 3 × 10 10 s –1 ) than the<br />
time resolution <strong>of</strong> the instrument (ca. 50 ps). Ultrafast transient absorption<br />
measurements, on the other h<strong>and</strong>, revealed bleaching <strong>of</strong> the MLCT b<strong>and</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
the Ru(II) complex in a picosecond time scale, assigned by the authors to the