During the last few decades, considerable efforts have been made toward the construction of donor–acceptor (D–A) linked systems that efficiently yield photoinduced charge separation, a basic step in natural photosynthesis and solar energy conversion. Among the building units for such D–A systems, nanocarbons deserves a special attention because it reveals notable electronic conductivity, tenacious mechanical strength, and huge specific surface area. These singular properties place nanocarbon-based D–A systems in an attractive position as the next-generation material for energy-conversion devices. With this in mind, a variety of studies have been conducted to prepare covalently linked systems of electron-accepting nanocarbons with electron-donating units such as pyrenes, porphyrins and phthalocyanines. However, the D–A interface frequently undergoes a rapid relaxation of the exciplex with partially charge-separated (CS) character or the complete CS state to the ground state, failing to form a long-lived CS state that is essential for solar energy conversion. In-depth understanding of the relationship between the structure and photodynamics of the electron donor-nanocarbon electron acceptor linked systems is important for extracting the full potential of such D–A materials toward the future applications.

In this talk I will give an overviw of our recent achievements related to photodynamics of porphyrin- attached single-walled carbon nanotubes connected with oligophenylene bridges.

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[2] T. Umeyama, T. Hanaoka, J. Baek, T. Higashino, F. Abou-Chahine, N. V. Tkachenko, and H. Imahori, J. Phys. Chem. C, 120, 28337-28344 (2016).

[3] J. Baek, T. Umeyama, K. Stranius, H. Yamada, N. V. Tkachenko, and H. Imahori, J. Phys. Chem. C, 121, 13952-13961 (2016).

[4] J. Baek, T. Umeyama, S. Mizuno, N. V. Tkachenko, and H. Imahori, J. Phys. Chem. C, in press.