Prof. Daniel Gryko’s team published recently three papers in Chemical Science. In the first one they have proven that the combined effect of weakly electron-withdrawing benzoxadiazole moiety and the nitro groups leads to the exceptionally red-shifted emission of 1,4-dihydropyrrolo[3,2-b]pyrroles.
The second one (collaboration with Prof. Eric Vauthey – University of Geneve) reveals that 1,4-dihydropyrrolo[3,2-b]pyrroles possessing N-arylethynylaryl substituents exhibit rich excited-state dynamics, which includes three different types of symmetry-breaking charge transfer processes depending on the nature of the end substituents on the core and branches and on the solvent: i) excited-state symmetry breaking within the core; ii) charge transfer from the core to one of the two branches; iii) charge transfer between the two branches.
The third one (collaboration with Dr. Bogdan Dereka – University of Zurich) demonstrate how excited-state symmetry breaking can serve as an ultrasensitive tool for probing microscopic electric fields.