Supramolecular photochemistry as well as solar cells are fascinating topics of current interest in Inorganic Photochemistry and very active research fields which have attracted wide attention in last two decades. A brief outline of the investigations in these fields carried out in our Laboratory of Inorganic Photochemistry and Energy Conversion is given here with no attempt of an exhaustive cov...

A number of novel ruthenium(II) polypyridine complexes have been designed and synthesized for use as photosensitizers in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) due to their rich photophysical properties such as intense absorption, long-lived lifetimes, high emission quantum yields and unique redox characteristics. Many of these complexes exhibit photophysical behavior that can be readily controlled...

Recent work has revealed the first observation of stereochemical effects on intervalence charge transfer (IVCT) in diand trinuclear mixed-valence complexes. The differential IVCT characteristics of the diastereoisomers of polypyridyl complexes of ruthenium and osmium offer a new and intimate probe of the fundamental factors that govern the extent of electronic delocalization and the barrier to ...

Characterizing the geometric and electronic structures of individual photoexcited dye molecules in solution is an important step towards understanding the interfacial properties of photo-active electrodes. The broad family of "red sensitizers" based on osmium(II) polypyridyl compounds often undergoes small photo-induced structural changes which are challenging to characterize. In this work, X-r...

A series of mono- and bi-metallic metal complexes (with Cu(II), Pt(II) and Zn(II)) with substituted polypyridyl ligands have been prepared and their binding affinities towards quadruplex (c-Myc and human telomeric) and duplex DNA (ds26 and calf thymus) determined using fluorescent indicator displacement (FID) assays and UV/vis spectroscopic titrations. These studies have shown that the number o...

The synthesis and characterisation of a series of dinuclear ruthenium and osmium polypyridyl metal complexes based on the bridging ligands [5-(5'-bipyridin-2',2''-yl)-3-(pyridin-2-yl)]-1,2,4-triazole (Hpytr-bipy), 2,2'-bis(pyridin-2''yl)-5,5'-bis(pyridin-3''-yl) (bipy-bipy) and 5,5'-bis(pyridin-2''-yl)-3,3'-bis(1,2,4-triazole) (Hpytr-Hpytr) are reported. The dinuclear complexes have been synthe...

Fully reversible photoswitching of the coordination mode of the ligand MeN4Py (1,1-di(pyridin-2-yl)-N,N'-bis(pyridin-2-yl-methyl)-ethan-1-amine) in its ruthenium(II) complex with visible light is reported. Irradiation with visible light results in dissociation of a pyridyl moiety, which is reversed by irradiation at 355 nm.

Tuberculosis is one of the world's deadliest infectious disease with 1.5 millions deaths annually. It is imperative to discover novel compounds with potent activity against M. tuberculosis. In this study, susceptibilities of M. smegmatis to the octahedral ruthenium(II) polypyridyl complexes, 1 {[(bpy)3Ru] (PF6)2 (bpy = 2,2'-bipyridine)}, 2 {[(phen)2Ru(dppz)](PF6)2 (phen = 1,10-phenanthroline, d...

Substitution-inert, redox- and photo-active ruthenium(II) complexes based on 2,2',6',2''-terpyridine ligands were self-assembled into discrete supramolecular cages via coordination to palladium(II) centres and characterised by NMR, ESI-MS and X-ray crystallography.

The ruthenium (II) polypyridyl complexes (RPC), Δ-[(phen)2Ru(tatpp)]Cl2 (Δ-[3]Cl2) and ΔΔ-[(phen)2Ru(tatpp)Ru(phen)2]Cl4 (ΔΔ-[4]Cl4, are a new generation of metal-based antitumor agents. These RPCs bind DNA via intercalation of the tatpp ligand, which itself is redox-active and is easily reduced at biologically relevant potentials. We have previously shown that RPC 4(4+) cleaves DNA when reduce...