Revealing competitive Förster-type resonance energy-transfer pathways in single bichromophoric molecules

  • Johan Hofkens
  • , Mircea Cotlet
  • , Tom Vosch
  • , Philip Tinnefeld
  • , Kenneth D. Weston
  • , Christophe Ego
  • , Andrew Grimsdale
  • , Klaus Müllen
  • , David Beljonne
  • , Jean Luc Brédas
  • , Sven Jordens
  • , Gerd Schweitzer
  • , Markus Sauer
  • , Frans De Schryver

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

171 Scopus citations

Abstract

We demonstrate measurements of the efficiency of competing Förster-type energy-transfer pathways in single bichromophoric systems by monitoring simultaneously the fluorescence intensity, fluorescence lifetime, and the number of independent emitters with time. Peryleneimide end-capped fluorene trimers, hexamers, and polymers with interchromophore distances of 3.4, 5.9, and on average 42 nm, respectively, served as bichromophoric systems. Because of different energy-transfer efficiencies, variations in the interchromophore distance enable the switching between homoenergy transfer (energy hopping), singlet-singlet annihilation, and singlet-triplet annihilation. The data suggest that similar energy-transfer pathways have to be considered in the analysis of single-molecule trajectories of donor/acceptor pairs as well as in natural and synthetic multichromophoric systems such as light-harvesting antennas, oligomeric fluorescent proteins, and dendrimers. Here we report selectively visualization of different energy-transfer pathways taking place between identical fluorophores in individual bichromophoric molecules.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)13146-13151
Number of pages6
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume100
Issue number23
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 11 2003

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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