Optical properties and photoinduced processes in multicomponent architectures with oligophenylenevinylene units

We have utilized oligophenylenevinylenes (OPV) as building blocks in multicomponent arrays featuring controlled photoinduced processes. We describe here three different systems. An OPV-fulleropyrazoline array exhibiting both an energy and an electron transfer terminal for the carbon sphere. The OPV moiety acts as an antenna unit. Then we present a dyad combining an OPV group with a protonable phenanthroline unit, in which the direction of photoinduced energy transfer can be tuned by proton input, enabling the ON/OFF switching of the luminescence of the OPV moiety. Finally a Cu(I)-bisphenanthroline complex with an appended OPV trimer or tetramer unit is described. The OPV luminescence is quenched by the nearby metal complex while, in its turn, the OPV unit imposes structural constraint to the metal center, affecting the metal-to-ligand-charge-transfer luminescence properties in rigid matrix. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.