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Ivan Scheblykin. Portrait.

Ivan Scheblykin

Professor

Ivan Scheblykin. Portrait.

Fluorescence quenching in Zn2+-bis-terpyridine coordination polymers: a single molecule study

Author

  • Ronald Siebert
  • Yuxi Tian
  • Rafael Camacho Dejay
  • Andreas Winter
  • Andreas Wild
  • Andreas Krieg
  • Ulrich S. Schubert
  • Juergen Popp
  • Ivan Scheblykin
  • Benjamin Dietzek

Summary, in English

A Zn2+-bis-terpyridine coordination polymer is investigated by single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy (SMS). The bis-terpyridine ligands of the coordination polymers bear conjugated chromophores connecting the terpyridine spheres of the ligands, which resemble structural features of MEH-PPV. To the best of our knowledge this paper presents the first systematic SMS study on Zn2+-bis-terpyridine coordination polymers. Upon incorporation of free chromophores into the polymer, the fluorescence quantum yield of individual chromophores appears to be reduced. The reason for the reduced emission per chromophore in a polymer is investigated by brightness studies on single isolated polymer molecules. Furthermore, the experiments reveal that the Zn2+-bis-terpyridine coordination polymer contains a significantly larger fraction of effective chromophores, compared to one of the most common conjugated polymers, e. g., MEH-PPV. This finding is attributed to the particularly rigid geometry of the system at hand, which was corroborated by polarization-dependent experiments. Time-resolved experiments identified two different types of intensity fluctuations: small amplitude intensity fluctuations might correlate with switching of individual chromophores by structural fluctuations, while large amplitude jumps switch off the emission of the entire molecule. Finally, experiments under different atmospheric conditions offer further insights into the molecular mechanism and the nature of the quenchers involved in the blinking.

Department/s

  • Chemical Physics

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Pages

16041-16050

Publication/Series

Journal of Materials Chemistry

Volume

22

Issue

31

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Royal Society of Chemistry

Topic

  • Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1364-5501