An experimental and computational structure–function study of an organic crystalline photoconductor composed of metal substituted oppositely charged ionic porphyrins.
The mechanism of photoconductivity in a crystalline photoconductor synthesized from 1:1 ratio of meso-tetra(4-pyridyl)porphyrin (TPyP) and meso-tetra(4-sulfonatophenyl)porphyrin (TSPP) ionic tectons was examined. The rod-like crystals of TPyP:TSPP insulate in the dark but become photoconducting on illumination and a portion of the photoinduced current persists after the laser light is turned off. This persistent photoconductivity (PPC) is investigated as a function of laser illumination wavelength, laser power, and sample temperature. The primary charge carriers in the TPyP:TSPP upon photoexcitation are electrons and the charge recombination mechanism follows monomolecular kinetics. The number of electrons contributing to the photocurrent is directly proportional to the number of photons absorbed thus, the mechanisms of the photoconductivity resulting from excitations within the Soret band and the Q-band are the same. The PPC is interpreted to be the result of the formation of photoinduced metastable defects that allow for Miller–Abrahams-like hopping conductivity. The TPyP:TSPP has an incommensurately modulated crystal lattice and its proposed model structure is based on both ionic and neutral porphyrin tectons. The thermogravimetric analysis shows that the porphyrin crystals undergo dehydration on heating (˜50 ∘C) by losing water molecules located in the crystalline channels. Temperature dependent XRD indicates that dehydration causes irreversible changes to the crystal structure. The loss of crystallinity observed with heating the TPyP:TSPP crystals above 90 ∘C causes approximately 25% loss in photoconductivity but has little effect on the lifetime associated with the persistent photoconductivity.
Crystallization of a binary porphyrin nanostructure (BPN) of TSPP (meso-tetra(4-sulfonatophenyl)porphyrin) and TMPyP (meso-tetra(N-methyl-4-pyridyl)porphyrin) was studied. The morphology and crystallinity of the BPN was investigated using transmission electron (TEM) and atomic force microscopies (AFM). The composition of the BPN was analyzed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), elemental analysis, and UV−visible spectroscopy. These techniques revealed a 1:1 composition of anionic to cationic porphyrins in the structure. Our initial studies on the synthesis of these materials revealed that the average size of these crystals increases monotonically with synthesis temperature and decreasing monotonically with initial concentration (supersaturation) of the mother solution. In this work we have developed a model to simulate the growth of these organic monocrystalline materials for the first time. This model encompasses all the major kinetic and thermodynamic steps of crystallization including homogeneous nucleation, growth, and Ostwald ripening. The model is then validated by comparing the simulation results with experimental crystallization histograms. The unknown parameters are extracted by fitting the simulation to the experimental data. This investigation will help in better understanding of crystallization and size control in this class of photoactive organic materials. The integration rate constant preexponential is found to be (2.9 ± 1.3) × 10 6 m 4 /(mol s), and the activation energy for the integration rate is determined as 44 ± 2 kJ/mol.
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