Intramolecular Energy Transfer in Dithienogermole Derivatives

Dithienogermole (DTG) has been applied as a useful building unit of optical/semiconducting materials for organic optoelectronic devices because of its extended conjugation, high chemical stability, and good emissive properties. Although DTG has two substituents on the Ge atom, the substituents have been limited to simple alkyl and aryl groups in previous work. In this work, to further uncover the new functionalities of this useful building unit, various π-conjugated groups were introduced on Ge of DTG. It was expected that the introduction of π-conjugated groups would give rise to efficient energy transfer between the substituents and the DTG core, which are in proximity and linked by a Ge atom. The thus-prepared DTG compounds with fluorene, terthiophene, and pyrene units on Ge possessed well-separated frontier orbitals on the substituents and the DTG core, as proved by the absorption spectra and DFT calculations. The substituted DTG derivatives showed clear emission only from the energy acceptor even though the energy donor was photoexcited. This indicated the highly efficient energy transfer in these compounds. We also prepared more π-extended compound DTGFl2-Ph with phenyl groups on the DTG thiophene rings. DTGFl2-Ph showed strong emission in the visible region with efficient energy transfer properties. These results clearly indicate the potential application of the present DTG system as optical functional materials.