Highly Efficient One-Dimensional Triplet Exciton Transport in a Palladium-Porphyrin-Based Surface-Anchored Metal-Organic Framework

Efficient photon harvesting materials require easy-to-deposit materials exhibiting good absorption and excited-state transport properties. We demonstrate an organic thin-film material system, a palladium-porphyrin based surface-anchored metal-organic framework (SURMOF) thin film, that meets these requirements. Systematic investigations using transient absorption spectroscopy confirm that triplets are very mobile within single crystalline domains; a detailed analysis reveals a triplet transfer rate on the order of 1010 s-1. The crystalline nature of the SURMOFs also allows a thorough theoretical analysis using density functional theory (DFT). The theoretical results reveal that the intermolecular exciton transfer can be described by a Dexter electron exchange mechanism that is considerably enhanced by virtual charge-transfer exciton intermediates. Based on the photophysical results, we predict exciton diffusion lengths on the order of several micrometers in perfectly ordered, single-crystalline SURMOFs. In the presently available samples, strong interactions of excitons with domain boundaries present in these metal-organic thin films limit the diffusion length to the diameter of these two-dimensional grains, which amount to about 100 nm. These results demonstrate potential of SURMOFs for energy harvesting applications