Rhenium(I) tricarbonyl polypyridine complexes showing strong absorption of visible light and long-lived triplet excited states as a triplet photosensitizer for triplet-triplet annihilation upconversion

The preparation of rhenium(I) tricarbonyl polypyridine complexes that show a strong absorption of visible light and long-lived triplet excited state and the application of these complexes as triplet photosensitizers for triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA) based upconversion are reported. Imidazole-fused phenanthroline was used as the N boolean AND N coordination ligand, on which different aryl groups were attached (Phenyl, Re-0; Coumarin, Re-1 and naphthyl, Re-2). Re-1 shows strong absorption of visible light (epsilon = 60800 M-1 cm(-1) at 473 nm). Both Re-1 and Re-2 show long-lived T-1 states (lifetime, tau(T), is up to 86.0 mu s and 64.0 mu s, respectively). These properties are in contrast to the weak absorption of visible light and short-lived triplet excited states of the normal rhenium(I) tricarbonyl polypyridine complexes, such as Re-0 (epsilon = 5100 M-1 cm(-1) at 439 nm, tau(T) = 2.2 mu s). The photophysical properties of the complexes were fully studied with steady state and time-resolved absorption and emission spectroscopes, as well as DFT calculations. The intra-ligand triplet excited state is proposed to be responsible for the exceptionally long-lived T-1 states of Re-1 and Re-2. The Re(I) complexes were used as triplet photosensitizers for TTA based upconversion and an upconversion quantum yield up to 17.0% was observed.