Some new aspects of dendrimer applications

Dendrimers are characterized by special features that make them promising candidates for many applications. Here we focus on two such applications: dendrimers as light harvesting antennae, and dendrimers as molecular amplifiers, which may serve as novel platforms for drug delivery. Both applications stem from the unique structure of dendrimers. We present a theoretical framework based on the master equation within which we describe these applications. The quantities of interest are the first passage time (FPT), probability density function (PDF) and its moments. We examine how the FPT PDF and its characteristics depend on the geometric and energetic structures of the dendrimeric system. In particular, we investigate the dependence of the FPT properties on the number of generations (dendrimer size) and the system bias. We present analytical expressions for the FPT PDF for very efficient dendrimeric antennae and for dendrimeric amplifiers. For these cases the mean FPT scales linearly with the system length, and fluctuations around the mean FPT are negligible for large systems. Relationships of the FPT to light harvesting process for other types of system-bias are discussed. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.