Azaporphyrinoid-Based Photo- and Electroactive Architectures for Advanced Functional Materials

Over the past two decades, a productive collaboration between the Torres and Guldi groups-at the Department of Organic Chemistry and the IAdChem Institute at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, in collaboration with IMDEA Nanoscience, and the Interdisciplinary Center for Molecular Materials (ICMM) and FAU Profile Center Solar at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, respectively-has led to the development of a rich portfolio of azaporphyrinoid-based photo- and electroactive architectures. These efforts have focused on the design and study of nanomaterials-including graphene and related 2D systems, smart stimuli-responsive platforms, and nanostructured hybrids-with promising applications in energy, sustainability, electronics, and biomedicine. By combining expertise in synthetic chemistry and excited-state dynamics, this partnership has enabled the construction of diverse donor-acceptor systems featuring phthalocyanines, subphthalocyanines, and related chromophores, covalently or supramolecularly integrated with fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and graphene derivatives. In this conspectus, a focused overview of these contributions is presented, illustrating how such molecular ensembles have served as powerful platforms to unravel fundamental processes in light and charge management, including charge separation, energy funneling, transport, and recombination. Systematic structure-function studies have revealed key relationships that underpin photophysical behavior and support the rational design of high-performance light-harvesting systems. Beyond discrete molecules, significant advances have also been made in their integration into nanostructured devices and stimuli-responsive materials for optoelectronic, photovoltaic, and biomedical applications.