Photophysical Investigation of Cyano-Substituted Terrylenediimide Derivatives

Two new terrylenediimide (TDI) chromophores with cyano substituents in the bay and core area (BCN-TDI and OCN-TDI, respectively) have been characterized by a wide range of techniques, and their applicability for stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy has been tested. By cyano substitution an increase of the fluorescence quantum yield and a decrease of the nonradiative rate constant is achieved and attributed to a reduced charge-transfer character of the excited state due to a lower electron density of the TDI core. For BCN-TDI, the substitution in the bay area induces a strong torsional twist in the molecule which, similar to phenoxy bay-perylenediimide (PDI), has a strong effect on the fluorescence lifetime but appears to prevent the aggregation that is observed for OCN-TDI. The single-molecule photobleaching stability of BCN- and OCN-TDI is lower than that of a reference TDI without cyano substitution (C7-TDI), although less so for OCN-TDI. The photophysical properties of the excited singlet st...