New-Fluorescent Model Compounds for the Study of Photoinduced Electron Transfer: The Influence of a Molecular Electric Field in the Excited State

摘要

The elucidation of the structure and some functions of the bacterial photosynthetic reaction center (PRC) has inspired chemists to develop synthetic supramolecular systems and models to mimic and understand some of these natural features. One of the most intriguing features of the photosynthetic reaction center is that photoinduced electron transfer (PET) occurs preferentially along one of two nearly identical paths. Here we describe two simple systems, 1 and 2, which display remarkably different PET behavior because of the presence of different PET paths. We infer that PET in 1 and 2 is directed by the electrical properties of the excited state itself: in other words, PET is self-regulated.