Pyrrolopyrrole Cyanines: Effect of Substituents on Optical Properties

To tune their optical properties, a large variety of pyrrolopyrrole cyanines (PPCys) were synthesized with substituted heteroaromatics such as quinoline, benzothiazole, and oxazole derivatives as terminal groups. Thus, a broad range of stable, highly fluorescing near-infrared (NIR) dyes with high absorptivities between 690 to 845 nm is accessible. The large number of newly synthesized compounds allows a detailed discussion of the correlation between molecular structure and the optical properties of the first electronic transition.