0000000000003261
AUTHOR
Andrea Cannizzo
Ultrafast Relaxation Dynamics of Osmium−Polypyridine Complexes in Solution
We present steady-state absorption and emission spectroscopy and femtosecond broadband photoluminescence up-conversion spectroscopy studies of the electronic relaxation of Os(dmbp)(3) (Os1) and Os(bpy)(2)(dpp) (Os2) in ethanol, where dmbp is 4,4'-dimethyl-2,2'-biypridine, bpy is 2,2'-biypridine, and dpp is 2,3-dipyridyl pyrazine. In both cases, the steady-state phosphorescence is due to the lowest (MLCT)-M-3 state, whose quantum yield we estimate to be <= 5.0 x 10(-3). For Os1, the steady-state phosphorescence lifetime is 25 ns. In both complexes, the photoluminescence excitation spectra map the absorption spectrum, pointing to an excitation wavelength-independent quantum yield. The ultrafa…
Conformational disorder and optical properties of point defects in vitreous silica
Abstract Disordered systems are characterized by the presence of local conformational heterogeneity, which reflects the complex landscape of the potential energy of the vitreous state. Optical properties of defects embedded in a vitreous matrix are also determined by the interaction with the surrounding environment; so the conformational disorder of the system induces spectral inhomogeneity. As a consequence, detailed experimental investigation of absorption and photoluminescence bands can give information on configurational substates around the chromophore. We focused our attention on B-type optical activity in silica glasses, characterized by a singlet emission and a triplet emission, conne…
Photocycle of Excitons in Nitrogen-Rich Carbon Nanodots: Implications for Photocatalysis and Photovoltaics
Nitrogen-rich carbon nanodots have emerged as promising nanomaterials for a wide range of applications where a highly emissive and photoactive material with low toxicity and cost-effectiveness is required. One of their hallmarks is indeed a bright, tunable fluorescence of excitonic nature. Disentangling the origin of their optical absorption and fluorescence properties and uncovering relaxation channels and interactions with solvents are some of the most debated issues in the field. Uncovering these aspects is essential for targeted applications, especially in the fields of photocatalysis but also photovoltaics and optoelectronics. Here, we present dedicated transient absorption measurement…
Disentangling size effects and spectral inhomogeneity in carbon nanodots by ultrafast dynamical hole-burning.
Carbon nanodots (CDs) are a novel family of nanomaterials exhibiting unique optical properties. In particular, their bright and tunable fluorescence redefines the paradigm of carbon as a "black" material and is considered very appealing for many applications. While the field keeps growing, understanding CDs fundamental properties and relating them to their variable structures becomes more and more critical. Two crucial problems concern the effect of size on the electronic structure of CDs, and to what extent their optical properties are influenced by structural disorder. Furthermore, it remains largely unclear whether traditional concepts borrowed from the photo-physics of semiconductor qua…
Real-time observation of the charge transfer to solvent dynamics
Intermolecular electron-transfer reactions have a crucial role in biology, solution chemistry and electrochemistry. The first step of such reactions is the expulsion of the electron to the solvent, whose mechanism is determined by the structure and dynamical response of the latter. Here we visualize the electron transfer to water using ultrafast fluorescence spectroscopy with polychromatic detection from the ultraviolet to the visible region, upon photo-excitation of the so-called charge transfer to solvent states of aqueous iodide. The initial emission is short lived (similar to 60 fs) and it relaxes to a broad distribution of lower-energy charge transfer to solvent states upon rearrangeme…
Carbon Nanodots: A Review—From the Current Understanding of the Fundamental Photophysics to the Full Control of the Optical Response
Carbon dots (CDs) are an emerging family of nanosystems displaying a range of fascinating properties. Broadly speaking, they can be described as small, surface-functionalized carbonaceous nanoparticles characterized by an intense and tunable fluorescence, a marked sensitivity to the environment and a range of interesting photochemical properties. CDs are currently the subject of very intense research, motivated by their possible applications in many fields, including bioimaging, solar energy harvesting, nanosensing, light-emitting devices and photocatalyis. This review covers the latest advancements in the field of CDs, with a focus on the fundamental understanding of their key photophysica…
Temperature dependence of luminescence decay in Sn-doped silica
We report an experimental study on the temperature dependence, in the range 18-300 K, of the decay kinetics of the emission at 4.1 eV from the first excited electronic state of oxygen deficient centers in a 2000 ppm Sn-doped sol-gel silica. At low temperature, this luminescence decays exponentially with a lifetime of 8.4 ns, whereas, on increasing the temperature, the time decay decreases and cannot be fitted with an exponential function. These results are expected if there is a competition between the radiative and the thermally activated intersystem-crossing decay channels toward the associated triplet state. The comparison with previous data in pure oxygen-deficient and Ge-doped silica g…
The interaction of photoexcited carbon nanodots with metal ions disclosed down to the femtosecond scale
Fluorescent carbon nanodots are a novel family of carbon-based nanoscale materials endowed with an outstanding combination of properties that make them very appealing for applications in nanosensing, photonics, solar energy harvesting and photocatalysis. One of the remarkable properties of carbon dots is their strong sensitivity to the local environment, especially to metal ions in solution. These interactions provide a testing ground for their marked photochemical properties, highlighted by many studies, and frequently driven by charge transfer events. Here we combine several optical techniques, down to femtosecond time resolution, to understand the interplay between carbon nanodots and aq…
Relaxation processes of point defects in vitreous silica from femtosecond to nanoseconds
We studied ultrafast relaxation of localized excited states at Ge-related oxygen deficient centers in silica using femtosecond transient-absorption spectroscopy. The relaxation dynamics exhibits a biexponential decay, which we ascribe to the departure from the Frank-Condon region of the first excited singlet state in 240 fs, followed by cooling in ∼10 ps. At later times, a nonexponential relaxation spanning up to 40 ns occurs, which is fitted with an inhomogeneous distribution of nonradiative relaxation rates, following a chi-square distribution with one degree of freedom. This reveals several analogies with phenomena such as neutron reactions, quantum dot blinking, or intramolecular vibrat…
Luminescence and absorption spectroscopy of Sn-related impurity centers in silica
We report an experimental study on the absorption and luminescence spectra of oxygen deficient point defects in Sn-doped silica. The absorption band at 4.9 eV (B2β band) and the two related photoluminescence bands at ∼4.2 eV (singlet-singlet emission, S1 → S0) and at ∼3.2 eV (triplet-singlet emission, T1 → S0), linked by a thermally activated T1 → S1 inter-system crossing process (ISC), are studied as a function of temperature from 300 to 20 K. This approach allows us to investigate the dynamics properties of the matrix in the surroundings of the point defects and the effects of local disorder on the two relaxation processes from S1: the radiative channel to S0 and the ISC process to T1. We…
Polychromatic femtosecond fluorescence studies of metal–polypyridine complexes in solution
Femtosecond-resolved broadband fluorescence studies are reported for[ M(bpy)(3)](2+) (M = Fe, Ru), RuN3 and RuN719 complexes in solution. We investigated the pump wavelength dependence of the fluorescence of aqueous [ Fe(bpy)(3)](2+) and the solvent and ligand dependence of the fluorescence of Ru-complexes excited at 400 nm. For all complexes, the (MLCT)-M-1 fluorescence appears at zero time delay with a mirror-like image with respect to the absorption. It decays in <= 30-45 fs due to intersystem crossing to the (MLCT)-M-3 states, but a longer lived component of similar to 190 fs additionally shows up in RuN719 and RuN3. No solvent effects are detected. The very early dynamics are character…
Temperature and excitation energy dependence of decay processes of luminescence in Ge-doped silica
We report experimental results on the time decay of photoluminescence at 4.2 eV in Ge-doped silica. This optical emission is assigned to a singlet-singlet transition between electronic states localized on an oxygen deficiency nearby a Ge atom and its radiative decay rate is in competition with an intersystem crossing mechanism that populates an excited triplet state. We investigate the dependence of the lifetime of this photoluminescence on the temperature, in the 6--295 K range, and on the excitation energy, in the ultraviolet and vacuum ultraviolet region. The mean value of the decay time decreases on increasing the temperature, in agreement with the phonon-assisted nature of the intersys…
Ultrafast spectroscopic investigation on fluorescent carbon nanodots: the role of passivation.
Disentangling the respective roles of the surface and core structures in the photocycle of carbon nanodots is a critical open problem in carbon nanoscience. While the need of passivating carbon dot surfaces to obtain efficiently emitting nanoparticles is very well-known in the literature, it is unclear if passivation introduces entirely new surface emitting states, or if it stabilizes existing states making them fluorescent. In this multi-technique femtosecond spectroscopy study, the relaxation dynamics of non-luminescent (non-passivated) carbon dots are directly compared with their luminescent (passivated) counterparts. Non-passivated dots are found to host emissive states, albeit very sho…
Role of vitreous matrix on the optical activity of Ge-doped silica
Abstract We report an experimental study on the relationship between the optical activity of Ge-oxygen deficient centers and dynamic properties and conformational heterogeneity of vitreous matrix in silica. We focus our attention on the absorption band at ∼5.2 eV (B 2β ) and on the two related emissions at ∼4.2 eV (α E ) and at ∼3.1 eV (β). From the temperature dependence of B 2β band we estimate a mean energy value of 26 meV for local vibrational modes coupled to the electronic transition, suggesting that the chromophore and its surrounding have access to low frequency dynamics. From the thermal behavior of the two emissions we distinguish the two competitive relaxation processes from the …
Spectral heterogeneity of oxygen-deficient centers in Ge-doped silica
Abstract We report an experimental investigation of the emission spectra of a 1000 mol ppm sol–gel Ge-doped silica by fine tuning the excitation energy in the ultraviolet (UV) range, around 5 eV , and in the vacuum-UV range, around 7.3 eV , at room temperature and at 10 K . The sample is characterized by a blue (centered at ∼3.2 eV ) and an UV (centered at ∼4.3 eV ) bands. We have found that the ratio between the area of the blue and the UV bands depends on the temperature and on the excitation energy in both the vacuum-UV and the UV range. At both temperatures the spectral features of the blue and the UV bands are weakly affected when the excitation is varied in the vacuum-UV. At variance,…
Luminescence activity of surface and interior Ge-oxygen deficient centers in silica
We report a comparative study on the optical activity of surface and interior Ge–oxygen deficient centers in pressed porous and sol–gel Ge-doped silica, respectively. The experimental approach is based on the temperature dependence of the two photoluminescence bands at 4.2 (singlet–singlet emission, S1! S0) and 3.1 eV (triplet–singlet emission, T1! S0), excited within the absorption band at about 5 eV. Our data show that the phonon assisted intersystem crossing process, linking the two excited electronic states, more effective for surface than for interior centers in the temperature range 5–300 K. For both centers, a distribution of the activation energies of the process is found. Based on th…
Dual Luminescence, Interligand Decay, and Nonradiative Electronic Relaxation of Cyclometalated Iridium Complexes in Solution
Femtosecond broadband photoluminescence studies are presented for Ir(ppy)3 (Ir1), Ir(ppy)2(pic) (Ir2), Ir(ppy)2(bpy)(PF6) (Ir3), Ir(ppz)3 (Ir4), and Ir(ppz)2dipy (Ir5) (where ppy = 2-phenylpyridine, pic = picolinate, bpy = 2,2′-bipyridine, ppz = 1-phenylpyrazole, and dipy = 5-phenyldipyrrinato) in solution. Upon 400-nm excitation of Ir1–Ir3, we observed a prompt population of the lowest MLCT states. The higher states decay on an ultrafast time scale (3MLCT state undergoes further vibrational relaxation on a 1-ps time scale. In Ir3, this relaxation is accompanied by an interligand decay from the ppy to the bpy ligand in ∼1.5 ps. For the ppy-containing complexes (Ir1 and Ir2), we found that, …