Electron spin polarization transfer to the charge-separated state from locally excited triplet configuration: theory and its application to characterization of geometry and electronic coupling in the electron donor-acceptor system.

We present a theoretical model of analysis of the time-resolved electron paramagnetic resonance (TREPR) spectrum of the charge-separated (CS) state generated by the photoinduced electron transfer (ET) reaction via the locally excited triplet state in an electron donor-acceptor (D-A) system with a fixed molecular orientation. We show, by the stochastic-Liouville equation, that chemically induced dynamic electron polarization (CIDEP) of the triplet mechanism is explained by lack of transfer of quantum coherence terms in the primary triplet spin state, resulting in net emissive or absorptive electron spin polarization (ESP) which is dependent on anisotropy of the singlet-triplet intersystem crossing in the precursor excited state. This disappearance of the coherence is clearly shown to occur when the photoinduced ET rate is smaller than the angular frequency of the Zeeman splitting: the transferred coherence terms are averaged to be zero due to effective quantum oscillations during the time that the chemical reaction proceeds. The above theory has been applied to elucidate the molecular geometries and spin-spin exchange interactions (2J) of the CS states for both folded and extended conformers by computer simulations of TREPR spectra of the zinc porphyrin-fullerene dyad (ZnP-C(60)) bridged by diphenyldisilane. On the extended conformation, the electronic coupling is estimated from the 2J value. It has been revealed that the coupling term is smaller than the reported electronic interactions of the porphyrin-C(60) systems bridged by diphenylamide spacers. The difference in the electronic couplings has been explained by the difference in the LUMO levels of the bridge moieties that mediate the superexchange coupling for the long-range ET reaction.