The Journal of Physical Chemistry B
Article
JASCO spectrofluorometer FP-6500ST. During photoirradia-
tion with monochromatic 380 nm light from 150 W xenon
lamp, emission intensity change was measured while stirring
the gas-saturated solution and the temperature was adjusted
using a Peltier thermocontroller. White light of a USIO Xe
short-arc lamp (150 W) through water as a thermal-cut filter
was employed to prepare a photoproduct. The obtained
photoproduct was monitored with a Bruker NMR AVANCE
III HD (400 MHz).
plot).
Figure 2 shows time-profiles of emission intensity of fac-
Ir(ppy)3 at 523 nm under photoirradiation of O2 saturated
Computational Details. The geometry optimization was
carried out by density functional theory (DFT) calculation.
The B3LYP as a functional and the basis set of 6-31G* for H,
C, N, O, S and LANL2DZ for Ir were employed in the
calculation. Polarizable continuum model (PCM) was taken
into account for the solvent effect by DMSO on total energy.
The absorption spectra were simulated by time-dependent
density functional theory (TD-DFT) calculation using the
optimized structures. Here the B3LYP as a functional and the
basis set of 6-31G* for H, C, N, O, and S were employed in the
calculation. All calculations were carried out by Gaussian 16
package. The fitting simulation of differential equations was
carried out using MATLAB.
Figure 2. Time-profiles of emission intensity at 523 nm of fac-
Ir(ppy)3 in O2 saturated DMSO (red), acetonitrile (orange), ethyl
acetate (green), toluene solution (blue) under photoirradiation (2.02
× 10−5 M, 293 K, λex = 380 nm). Here, the intensities at t = 0 s are
normalized to unity.
DMSO, acetonitrile, ethyl acetate, and toluene solution (2.02
× 10−5 M) at 293 K for 10 800 s using UV light (λex = 380
nm). Surprisingly, the emission intensity of fac-Ir(ppy)3 was
enhanced under photoirradiation in O2 saturated DMSO
solution while that did not change in other solvents such as
acetonitrile, ethyl acetate, and toluene. The remarkable
emission intensity change observed after photoirradiation to
fac-Ir(ppy)3 in O2 saturated DMSO solution showed an almost
linear line as a function of t. From the slope of the straight line,
the rate in emission enhancement was determined to be 1.06 ×
10−3 s−1. For other solvents, the rates evaluated from the
respective slopes were negligibly small, 3.08 × 10−6 s−1
(acetonitrile), 3.14 × 10−6 s−1 (ethyl acetate), and −5.10 ×
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
■
Emission Intensity Enhancement for fac-Ir(ppy)3.
Figure 1a,b shows excitation and emission spectra of 2.02 ×
10−5 M fac-Ir(ppy)3 in air, Ar, and O2 saturated DMSO
solutions at 293 K. The excitation peaks attributed to a
transition from metal to ligand charge transfer (MLCT) were
observed at 380 nm (Figure 1a), and the emission peaks
assigned to MLCT phosphorescence were observed at 523 nm
(Figure 1b).2,5 For emission spectra, the spectral profiles are
consistent with each other showing an emission peak at 523
nm although the emission intensities are observed to be in the
order of O2 < air < Ar saturated DMSO. Emission lifetimes
evaluated from curve fitting of emission decay curves as τ =
1.38 μs (Ar), 182 ns (air), 35.4 ns (O2). The variation in
emission lifetime is mainly responsible for the emission
10−6 −1 (toluene), which are 1000 times smaller than that for
s
DMSO solution. Since the entire solutions were O2 gas
saturated, emission from photoexcited fac-Ir(ppy)3 (fac-
Ir(ppy)3*) should be strongly quenched by the triplet−triplet
energy transfer, which are frequently observed for phosphor-
escent materials. This emission enhancement suggests that the
photoirradiation to fac-Ir(ppy)3 in DMSO solution can
suppresses the emission quenching by 3O2. The emission
intensity enhancement was observed even in a DMSO solution
containing [Ru(bpy)3]2+ (bpy = 2,2′-bipyridine) instead of fac-
Emission enhancement was observed with changing
excitation wavelength by every 20 nm from 280 to 480 nm
for an O2 saturated DMSO solution containing fac-Ir(ppy)3
(Figure 3a). Figure 3b shows action spectra of the photo-
reaction at 0, 2000, 4000, 6000, 8000, and 10000 s, which are
plots of emission intensity against the irradiation light
wavelength. The action spectrum at t = 0 corresponds to the
excitation spectrum of fac-Ir(ppy)3, consistent with absorption
spectrum of fac-Ir(ppy)3 (Figure 6). These plots clearly show
that the emission intensity increases along with irradiation
time. Here, the emission intensity was increased by irradiation
at emission peak, indicating that fac-Ir(ppy)3* as a photo-
sensitizer plays a key role of the emission enhancement and the
enhancement is accelerated with increasing the number of fac-
Ir(ppy)3*. Figure 4 shows plots of emission intensities against
irradiation time when the concentration of fac-Ir(ppy)3 was
varied from 4.00 × 10−6 to 1.00 × 10−4 M in O2 saturated
DMSO. Emission intensity was increased by increasing the
3
quenching by dissolved O2. Assuming the quenching is a
diffusion-controlled process where quenching rate constant
(kq) is typically kq = 1 × 109 to 1 × 1010 M−1 s−1,25,26 the
concentration of the quencher is roughly estimated as 3 × 10−3
to 3 × 10−2 M from the Stern−Volmer relation (see
On the other hand, self-quenching of emission is well-known
for fac-Ir(ppy)3 because of the long-lived triplet excited state.
Emission decays of fac-Ir(ppy)3 in DMSO were measured
while changing the concentration from 1.01 × 10−5 M to 6.05
× 10−5 M. In polar solvent, the self-quenching of emission is
caused by the ground fac-Ir(ppy)3 but not triplet−triplet
annihilation.27−31 Evaluated emission lifetime from curve
fittings using single exponential functions are listed in Table
1. From a Stern−Volmer plot for the self-quenching (Figure
S1), the self-quenching rate and the lifetime at infinite dilution
are determined as ksq = 1.25 × 109 M−1 s−1 and τ0 = 1.45 μs
Table 1. Concentration Dependence in Emission Lifetime of
fac-Ir(ppy)3 in Ar Saturated DMSO
[fac-Ir(ppy)3]/M 6.05 × 10−5 4.03 × 10−5 2.02 × 10−5 1.01 × 10−5
τ/μs
1.31
1.35
1.41
1.42
C
J. Phys. Chem. B XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX