Boron-, carbon-, and silicon-bridged 1,12-dihydroxy-perylene bisimides with tuned structural and optical properties

Establishing suitable design strategies to tailor the functional properties of perylene bisimide (PBI) dyes is critical for their successful application in various devices. Herein, we report a new synthetic strategy to tune their structural and fluorescence properties by employing a 1,12-bay-substitution pattern that has been seldomly investigated in the past. Central to the strategy is the use of 1,12-dihydroxy-PBI as a starting compound and the subsequent bridging of these hydroxy bay-functional groups with either a boron, carbon or silicon atom resulting in derivatives with a rigidified perylene core. This is followed by a detailed exploration of synthetic possibilities to functionalize the unsubstituted 6,7-positions at the opposite bay area to achieve novel perylene dyes with excellent structural and optical properties. The fluorescence color could be tuned from green to dark-orange while retaining the almost unity fluorescence quantum yield in solution. Moreover, a strong fluorescence with quantum yields as high as 40% has been observed for powders, which clearly illustrates the potential of the presented structural design to obtain new solid-state emitters. The bridging of 1,12-dihydroxy-PBI with either a boron, carbon or silicon atom and further functionalization yielded novel perylene dyes with excellent tuned optical properties, showing strong fluorescence in solution as well as the in solid-state.

Automated summary

In this study, a new synthetic strategy was reported to control the structural and fluorescence properties of perylene bisimide (PBI) dyes by employing a 1,12-bay-substitution pattern. Novel perylene dyes with excellent structural and optical properties were successfully obtained through further functionalization of 1,12-dihydroxy-PBI derivatives.