Chiral Bodipy dyes & photosensitizers for photodynamic therapy and dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

Bodipy is a molecule with many superior properties. After its discovery in 1968, most of the features were not recognized until mid 1990s. Thereafter, many research papers and patents have been produced and the number of publications and citations is still on the rise today. An important fraction of the research done with this fluorophore is in chemosensing field to probe various analytes including anions, cations and even biomolecules. However, in this research we have focused on different areas of subjects and tried to find novel applications for these dyes. First, we designed orthogonal bodipy dimers for efficient triplet photosensitization without heavy atoms in contrast to most other sensitizers and efficient singlet oxygen generation was achieved (Φ∆=0.51). In the second project, calix[4]arene molecules were designed and synthesized as carriers for photodynamic therapy, potentially behaving as a molecular basket carrying the agents to the tumor tissues. Later, we focused on obtaining axial chiral molecules by using solely bodipy dyes, and we were able to obtain enantiopure fragments were separated by using chiral HPLC. These rare molecules are desirable for modern biological labeling and advanced optoelectronic devices. Finally, we designed bodipy dyes for dye sensitized solar cells by adapting relevant functional groups, and following synthesis work, we constructed cells to assess the design parameters via measuring the electrical output results.