The exploration of magnetic photo-excited states using organometallic spin couplers based on the silole ring Original Research Article

The photoexcited states of the 1,1-dimethyl-2,3,4,5-tetraphenylsilole (TPS) and of the bis(tertiobutylnitroxide)-substituted TPS (TPS-TNO) have been studied using optical and time-resolved electron spin resonance (TRESR) spectroscopic methods. The TPS-TNO was designed and synthesized with in mind to achieve the photo-induced spin alignment which has been observed with anthracene-based radicals and . Although a photoexcited triplet state has been characterized for the TPS coupler, TPS-TNO did not show any signal arising from photoexcited states. This result may come from a very short lifetime of the photoexcited high spin states as a result of the attachment of radicals to TPS or from the very low efficiency of the intersystem crossing.