The photophysics of 9(19),16(17),23(24)-tri-tert-butyl-2-[ethynyl-(4-carboxymethyl)phenyl] phthalocyaninatozinc(II)
(ZnPc) in solution and adsorbed on TiO2 and ZrO2 nanoparticle films is characterized by stationary and time-resolved
spectroscopies in the subpicosecond to nanosecond time interval. The
comparison between the solution and the solid substrate data allows
us to identify different pathways of the energy and electron relaxation.
On the solid substrate, the presence of H-aggregates adds a further
nonradiative deactivation channel competing with the charge injection
into the TiO2-conducting band, thus providing an explanation
of the reduced efficiency of the charge transfer processes. The comparison
between the kinetics recorded after excitation of the S0–S2 transition and those recorded after excitation
of the S0–S1 transition provides an estimate
of the internal conversion between S2 and S1 which occurs very efficiently and on an ultrafast (<50 fs) time
scale. The ground-state recovery characterized by the decay of the
bleaching band in the transient spectra slows down in TiO2 samples and is taken as evidence of the charge injection in this
kind of sample.