Taming C60 Fullerene: Tuning Intramolecular Photoinduced Electron Transfer Process with Subphthalocyanines

Two subphthalocyanine-C₆₀ conjugates have been prepared by means of the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction of (perfluoro) or hexa(pentylsulfonyl) electron deficient subphthalocyanines to C₆₀.  Comprehensive assays regarding the electronic features – in the ground and excited state – of the resulting conjugates revealed energy and electron transfer processes upon photoexcitation.  Most important is the unambiguous evidence – in terms of time-resolved spectroscopy – of an ultrafast oxidative electron transfer evolving from C₆₀ to the photoexcited subphthalocyanines.  This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first case of an intramolecular oxidation of C₆₀ within electron donor-acceptor conjugates by means of only photoexcitation.