Ahmed Zewail received the Nobel price for the development of femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. With this technique it is possible to look at the absorption of the excited state of a molecule on the 100 fs scale (100 x 10^-15 s = 0.0000000000001 s time scale).

With this technique we studied the third allotropic form of carbon (C60, Nobelprice Kroto Curl Smalley) attached to a very important dye molecule. Perylene-bis(dicarboximide) dyes are used as pigments in the paint of red cars, as laser-dyes in the photoactive layer of photocopying machines.

We think that these types of molecules could be interesting to develop new types of organic solar cells, in combination with conducting polymers.

The graph is published in:
"Superabsorbing Fullerenes: Spectral and Kinetic Characterization of Photoinduced Interactions in Perylenediimide-Fullerene-C60 Dyads"

by Jérôme Baffreau, Stéphanie Leroy-Lhez, Piétrick Hudhomme, Michiel M. Groeneveld, Ivo H. M. van Stokkum, and René M. Williams J. Phys. Chem. A; 2006; 110(49) pp 13123 - 13125;
(Letter) DOI: 10.1021/jp066415+

Submitted by
Dr. René M. Williams
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Molecular Photonics Group
Van't Hoff Institute for Molecular Science