Transition-metal complexes are used as photosensitizers, in light-emitting diodes, for biosensing and in photocatalysis. A key feature in these applications is excitation from the ground state to a charge-transfer state; the long charge-transfer-state lifetimes typical for complexes of ruthenium and other precious metals are often essential to ensure high performance. There is much interest in replacing these scarce elements with Earth-abundant metals, with iron and copper being particularly attractive owing to their low cost and non-toxicity. But despite the exploration of innovative molecular designs, it remains a formidable scientific challenge to access Earth-abundant transition-metal complexes with long-lived charge-transfer excited states. No known iron complexes are considered photoluminescent at room temperature, and their rapid excited-state deactivation precludes their use as photosensitizers. Here we present the iron complex [Fe(btz)] (where btz is 3,3'-dimethyl-1,1'-bis(p-tolyl)-4,4'-bis(1,2,3-triazol-5-ylidene)), and show that the superior σ-donor and π-acceptor electron properties of the ligand stabilize the excited state sufficiently to realize a long charge-transfer lifetime of 100 picoseconds (ps) and room-temperature photoluminescence. This species is a low-spin Fe(iii) d complex, and emission occurs from a long-lived doublet ligand-to-metal charge-transfer (LMCT) state that is rarely seen for transition-metal complexes. The absence of intersystem crossing, which often gives rise to large excited-state energy losses in transition-metal complexes, enables the observation of spin-allowed emission directly to the ground state and could be exploited as an increased driving force in photochemical reactions on surfaces. These findings suggest that appropriate design strategies can deliver new iron-based materials for use as light emitters and photosensitizers.

Photosynthesis is a highly optimized process from which valuable lessons can be learned about the operating principles in nature. Its primary steps involve energy transport operating near theoretical quantum limits in efficiency. Recently, extensive research was motivated by the hypothesis that nature used quantum coherences to direct energy transfer. This body of work, a cornerstone for the field of quantum biology, rests on the interpretation of small-amplitude oscillations in two-dimensional electronic spectra of photosynthetic complexes. This Review discusses recent work reexamining these claims and demonstrates that interexciton coherences are too short lived to have any functional significance in photosynthetic energy transfer. Instead, the observed long-lived coherences originate from impulsively excited vibrations, generally observed in femtosecond spectroscopy. These efforts, collectively, lead to a more detailed understanding of the quantum aspects of dissipation. Nature, rather than trying to avoid dissipation, exploits it via engineering of exciton-bath interaction to create efficient energy flow.

The idea that excitonic (electronic) coherences are of fundamental importance to natural photosynthesis gained popularity when slowly dephasing quantum beats (QBs) were observed in the two-dimensional electronic spectra of the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex at 77 K. These were assigned to superpositions of excitonic states, a controversial interpretation, as the strong chromophore-environment interactions in the complex suggest fast dephasing. Although it has been pointed out that vibrational motion produces similar spectral signatures, a concrete assignment of these oscillatory signals to distinct physical processes is still lacking. Here we revisit the coherence dynamics of the FMO complex using polarization-controlled two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy, supported by theoretical modelling. We show that the long-lived QBs are exclusively vibrational in origin, whereas the dephasing of the electronic coherences is completed within 240 fs even at 77 K. We further find that specific vibrational coherences are produced via vibronically coupled excited states. The presence of such states suggests that vibronic coupling is relevant for photosynthetic energy transfer.

The Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) photosynthetic complex found in green sulfur bacteria has over the last decades been one of the favorite "model" systems for biological energy transfer. However, even after 40 years of studies, quantitative knowledge about its energy-transfer properties is limited. Here, two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy with full polarization control is used to provide an accurate description of the electronic structure and population dynamics in the complex. The sensitivity of the technique has further allowed us to spectroscopically identify the eighth bacterio-chlorophyll molecule recently discovered in the crystal structure. The time evolution of the spectral structure, covering time scales from tens of femtoseconds up to a nanosecond, reflects the energy flow in FMO and enables us to extract an unambiguous energy-transfer scheme.

Triarylamines are demonstrated as novel, tunable electroactivated photocatalysts that use dispersion precomplexation to harness the full potential of the visible photon (>4.0 V vs. SCE) in anti-Kasha photo(electro)chemical super-oxidations of arenes.

Herein, we report on a molecular catalyst embedding metal–organic framework (MOF) that enables enhanced photocatalytic CO2 reduction activity. A benchmark photocatalyst fac-ReBr­(CO)3(4,4′-dcbpy) (dcbpy = dicarboxy-2,2′-bipyridine) and photosensitizer Ru­(bpy)2(5,5′-dcbpy)­Cl2 (bpy = 2,2′-bipyridine) were synergistically entrapped inside the cages of the nontoxic and inexpensive MIL-101-NH2(Al) through noncovalent host–guest interactions. The heterogeneous material improved Re catalyst stabilization under photocatalytic CO2 reduction conditions as selective CO evolution was prolonged from 1.5 to 40 h compared to the MOF-free photosystem upon reactivation with additional photosensitizer. By varying ratios of immobilized catalyst to photosensitizer, we demonstrated and evaluated the effect of reaction environment modulation in defined MOF cages acting as a nanoreactor. This illustrated the optimal efficiency for two photosensitizers and one catalyst per cage and further led to the determination of ad hoc relationships between molecular complex size, MOF pore windows, and number of hostable molecules per cage. Differing from typical homogeneous systems, photosensitizerand not catalystdegradation was identified as a major performance-limiting factor, providing a future route to higher turnover numbers via a rational choice of parameters.

To fully exploit the capabilities of fluorescence probes in modern experiments, where advanced instrumentation is used to probe complex environments, other photophysical properties than emission color and emission intensity are monitored. Each dye property can be addressed individually as well as collectively to provide in-depth information unavailable from the standard intensity measurements. Dyes with long emission lifetimes and strongly polarized transitions enable the monitoring of lifetime changes as well as emission polarization (or anisotropy). Thus experiments can be designed to follow slow dynamics. In this article the UV and visible electronic transitions of a series of red emitting dyes based on the triangulenium motif are investigated. We resolve overlapping features in the spectra and assign transition moment of the molecular axes. The result is the complete Jablonski diagram for the UV and visible spectral region. The symmetries of the studied dyes are shown to have a large influence on the optical response and they are clearly separated into two groups of symmetry by their photophysical properties. The C2v symmetric dyes: azadioxatriangulenium (ADOTA+) and diazaoxatriangulenium (DAOTA+) have high emission anisotropies, fluorescence lifetimes around 20 ns, and fluorescence quantum yields of ~50%. The trioxatriangulenium (TOTA+) and triazatriangulenium (TATA+) dyes—nominally of D3h symmetry—have fluorescence lifetimes around 10 ns lifetimes and fluorescence quantum yields of 10-15%. However, the D3h-symmetry is shown to be lowered to a point group, where the axes transform uniquely such that the degeneracy of the E’-states is lifted.

A new type of solid-state molecular junction is introduced, which employs reduced graphene oxide as a transparent top contact that permits a self-assembled molecular monolayer to be photoswitched in situ, while simultaneously enabling charge-transport measurements across the molecules. The electrical switching behavior of a less-studied molecular switch, dihydroazulene/vinylheptafulvene, is described, which is used as a test case.