Electron transfer hopping

Spacers with energy levels or redox states in between those of the donor and acceptor may help energy or electron transfer (hopping mechanism). Spacers whose energy or redox levels can be manipulated by an external stimulus can play the role of switches for the energy- or electron-transfer processes.141... 

Figure 14 Comparison of vibrational and electron transfer hopping frequencies. Closed ellipses based on kinetic data open rectangles based on Equation (75). See Table 6.

In a more complex assembly, long-range elecQon transfer can be achieved by electron transfer hopping amongst additional sites A2 until the excited electron reaches a final acceptor site, A3 in eq. 4. 

This is no longer the case when (iii) motion along the reaction patir occurs on a time scale comparable to other relaxation times of the solute or the solvent, i.e. the system is partially non-relaxed. In this situation dynamic effects have to be taken into account explicitly, such as solvent-assisted intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution (IVR) in the solute, solvent-induced electronic surface hopping, dephasing, solute-solvent energy transfer, dynamic caging, rotational relaxation, or solvent dielectric and momentum relaxation. 

In solid state materials, single-step electron transport between dopant species is well known. For example, electron-hole recombination accounts for luminescence in some materials [H]. Multistep hopping is also well known. Models for single and multistep transport are enjoying renewed interest in tlie context of DNA electron transfer [12, 13, 14 and 15]. Indeed, tliere are strong links between tire ET literature and tire literature of hopping conductivity in polymers [16]. 

In the same way that we considered two limiting extremes for ligand substitution reactions, so may we distinguish two types of reaction pathway for electron transfer (or redox) reactions, as first put forth by Taube. For redox reactions, the distinction between the two mechanisms is more clearly defined, there being no continuum of reactions which follow pathways intermediate between the extremes. In one pathway, there is no covalently linked intermediate and the electron just hops from one center to the next. This is described as the outer-sphere mechanism (Fig. 9-4). 

For highly ordered 3D systems, Terril et al. showed that the electron-hopping conductivity depends on the activation energy of the electron transfer and the electronic coupling term [3 [71]. They took the latter as a... 

Secondly, Fig. 5 shows that the polymeric rate constants parallel values of heterogeneous rate constants that have been observed for the electrochemical reactions of solutions of the corresponding dissolved porphyrin monomers. (The slope of the line is 0.5). This re-emphasizes what was said above, that measurements of electron hopping in polymers can give rate constants that are meaningful in the context of the metalloporphyrin s intrinsic electron transfer chemistry. 

A multistep hopping mechanism explains not only the long distance hole transfer through DNA, it can also rationalize the electron transfer through reduced DNA as T. Carell and M.D. Sevilla demonstrate in this volume. 

Fig. 1 Schematic mechanism for the long-distance oxidation of DNA. Irradiation of the anthraquinone (AQ) and intersystem crossing (ISC) forms the triplet excited state (AQ 3), which is the species that accepts an electron from a DNA base (B) and leads to products. Electron transfer to the singlet excited state of the anthraquinone (AQ 1) leads only to back electron transfer. The anthraquinone radical anion (AQ ) formed in the electron transfer reaction is consumed by reaction with oxygen, which is reduced to superoxide. This process leaves a base radical cation (B+-, a hole ) in the DNA with no partner for annihilation, which provides time for it to hop through the DNA until it is trapped by water (usually at a GG step) to form a product, 7,8-dihydro-8-oxoguanine (8-OxoG)...

Incorporation of an artificial flavin nucleobase and of a cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer building block into DNA DNA double strands, DNArPNA hybrid duplexes, and DNA-hairpins, provided compelling evidence that an excess electron can hop through DNA to initiate dimer repair even at a remote site. The maximum excess electron transfer distance realised so far in these defined Donor-DNA-Acceptor systems is 24 A. New experiments are now in progress to clarify whether even larger transfer distances can be achieved. 

A number of different techniques have been applied to test the distance and orientation dependence of ET reactions (Closs and Miller, 1988 Closs et al, 1989 Liang et al., 1990 Reimers and Hush, 1990 Fox and Chanon, 1988 Wasielewski, 1989 Paddon Row and Jordan, 1988 Joachim et al, 1990 McConnell, 1961). Our method of analysing the mode of charge distribution in charged species is esr spectroscopy, which defines the timescale of the detectable dynamic species (Gerson, 1967 Kurreck et al, 1988 Wertz and Bolton, 1972). If an electron transfer is slow relative to the esr timescale (<10 7s) the spectrum corresponds to that of monomeric model compounds with a single electrophore. If the hopping process is rapid on the esr timescale, one will detect an effective delocalization. 

Fig. 2 (a) Schematic representation of the energy levels diagrams for a DBA system and a MBM junction in which the electron transfer process is dominated (b) by superexchange or non-resonant tunnelling, (c) by resonant tunnelling or (d) by hopping ... 

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