The importance of nanoscopic ordering on the kinetics of photoinduced charge transfer in aggregated π-conjugated hydrogen-bonded donor-acceptor systems

Aggregated complexes of diaminotriazine oligo(p-phenylene vinylene) (OPV) units hydrogen bonded to different complementary perylene bisimide (PERY) compounds have been investigated by means of absorption, circular dichroism, photoluminescence, and photoinduced absorption spectroscopy. These studies reveal that in the aggregated state an ultrafast photoinduced charge separation occurs via an intermolecular pathway in the J-type stack of hydrogen-bonded OPV-PERY arrays. The subsequent charge recombination reaction strongly depends on small structural differences within the J-type geometry as revealed by comparison of stacked supramolecular dimers, trimers, and covalently OPV-PERY linked systems. A coupled oscillator model is used to analyze absorption and circular dichroism spectra and to identify intermolecular arrangements that are consistent with the experimental spectra and the charge-transfer kinetics.