Electron transfer in Me-blocked heterodimeric α,γ-peptide nanotubular donor–acceptor hybrids

Bio-inspired cyclopeptidic heterodimers built on beta-sheet-like hydrogen-bonding networks and bearing photoactive and electroactive chromophores on the outer surface have been prepared. Different cross-strand pairwise relationships between the side chains of the cyclic alpha,gamma-peptides afford the heterodimers as three nonequivalent dimeric species. Steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopies clearly show an electron transfer process from pi-extended tetrathiafulvalene, covalently attached to one of the cyclopeptides, to photoexcited [60]fullerene, located on the complementary cyclopeptide. The charge-separated state was stabilized for up to 1 micros before recombining and repopulating the ground state. Our current example shows that cyclopeptidic templates can be successfully used to form light-harvesting/light-converting hybrid ensembles with a distinctive organization of donor and acceptor units able to act as efficient artificial photosystems.