Rotaxane-branched dendrimers with enhanced photosensitization

During the past few decades, fabrication of functional rotaxane-branched dendrimers has become one of the most attractive yet challenging topics within supramolecular chemistry and materials science. Herein, we present the successful fabrication of a family of new rotaxane-branched dendrimers containing up to 21 platinum atoms and 42 photosensitizer moieties through an efficient and controllable divergent approach. Notably, the photosensitization efficiencies of these rotaxane-branched dendrimers gradually increased with the increase of dendrimer generation. For example, third-generation rotaxane-branched dendrimer PG3 revealed 13.3-fold higher ¹O₂ generation efficiency than its corresponding monomer AN. The enhanced ¹O₂ generation efficiency was attributed to the enhancement of intersystem crossing (ISC) through the simple and efficient incorporation of multiple heavy atoms and photosensitizer moieties on the axles and wheels of the rotaxane units, respectively, which has been validated by UV− visible and fluorescence techniques, time-dependent density functional theory calculations, photolysis model reactions, and apparent activation energy calculations. Therefore, we develop a new promising platform of rotaxane-branched dendrimers for the preparation of effective photosensitizers.