Photophysics of Metal-mediated Assemblies of Porphyrins and Perylene Bisimides

Interesting supramolecular architectures can be obtained exploiting the exocyclic coordination ability of pyridylporphyrins. Thus, coordination to metal centers can be used to build metal-bridged porphyrin assemblies (e.g., 1). On the other hand, axial coordination to metalloporphyrins can be used to produce a variety of side-to-face porphyrin assemblies (e.g., 2). The two structural motifs can be combined in higher order assemblies (e.g., 3). Other interesting supramolecular systems can be designed along the same lines using pyridyl-functionalized perylene bisimides (e.g., 4). The photophysics of these multichromophoric assemblies is characterized by the occurrence of fast intercomponent energy and electron transfer processes. Recent examples will be discussed