Light-harvesting antennae using the host-guest chemistry of mesoporous organosilica

Abstract

This thesis presents preliminary work into the synthesis of light-harvesting antennae using mesoporous silica (m-SiO2). By forcing spatial constraint on components, nature can achieve unparalleled efficiencies when compared to artificial photosynthetic devices. Here, using supramolecular host-guest chemistry, systems are presented where the high chemical, thermal and mechanical stability of mesoporous silica has been combined with the excellent photophysical properties of BODIPY dyes and platinum(II) complexes. In contrast to other work in the literature, amphiphilic dyes have been used as a template for the silica, eliminating the need for removal of the micelles while retaining the mesoporous structure of the framework. Much of this thesis will be the exploration of this process. Next, zinc bis-quinolinolate complexes were incorporated into the silica framework. This will result in a bichromophoric system where the BODIPY dyes absorb light and transfer the excitation energy to the zinc complex, or vice versa, for use in such fields as photocatalysis and OLEDs. As this is preliminary work, these two processes have not been combined but lay the foundation for future experiments.