Photophysical properties of novel water soluble fullerene derivatives

The spectroscopic and photophysical properties for a series of bis-adduct derivatives of C60 have been studied using a combination of time-resolved and steady state techniques, including picosecond single photon counting and laser flash photolysis. The electronic absorption and fluorescence spectra are red shifted with respect to those of C60. As with the parent fullerene, the main deactivation channel of the excited singlet state is intersystem crossing with the yields of singlet oxygen ranging from 0.63 to 0.97. Our results demonstrate that the photophysical properties depend on the addition pattern of the addends.