Disassembly of an Interconjugated Polyelectrolyte Complex Using Ionic Surfactants

Abstract

The ability to manipulate the state of assembly of light-harvesting molecular materials can be important to control light-induced damage at high illumination intensities. Disassembly of such materials is thus an important consideration from a photoprotection perspective. Here, we show that an artificial light-harvesting antenna based on an interconjugated polyelectrolyte complex can be disassembled using ionic surfactants in aqueous solution. We demonstrate that both anionic and cationic surfactants can do so with comparable efficiency, thereby shutting electronic energy transfer between the exciton donor and acceptor conjugated polyelectrolytes. However, the structural evolution of the aqueous complexes both above and below the critical micelle concentration differed significantly depending on the sign of the ionic surfactant and the relative polyion charge ratio.