Strongly exchange-coupled triplet pairs in an organic semiconductor

From biological complexes to devices based on organic semiconductors, spin interactions play a key role in the function of molecular systems. For instance, triplet-pair reactions impact operation of organic light-emitting diodes as well as photovoltaic devices. Conventional models for triplet pairs assume they interact only weakly. Here, using electron spin resonance, we observe long-lived, strongly-interacting triplet pairs in an organic semiconductor, generated via singlet fission. Using coherent spin-manipulation of these two-triplet states, we identify exchange-coupled (spin-2) quintet complexes co-existing with weakly coupled (spin-1) triplets. We measure strongly coupled pairs with a lifetime approaching 3 µs and a spin coherence time approaching 1 µs, at 10 K. Our results pave the way for the utilization of high-spin systems in organic semiconductors.Gates-Cambridge Trust, Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability, Freie Universität Berlin within the Excellence Initiative of the German Research Foundation, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Grant ID: EP/G060738/1)This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphys3908

Kaposin-B Enhances the PROX1 mRNA Stability during Lymphatic Reprogramming of Vascular Endothelial Cells by Kaposi's Sarcoma Herpes Virus

Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is the most common cancer among HIV-positive patients. Histogenetic origin of KS has long been elusive due to a mixed expression of both blood and lymphatic endothelial markers in KS tumor cells. However, we and others discovered that Kaposi's sarcoma herpes virus (KSHV) induces lymphatic reprogramming of blood vascular endothelial cells by upregulating PROX1, which functions as the master regulator for lymphatic endothelial differentiation. Here, we demonstrate that the KSHV latent gene kaposin-B enhances the PROX1 mRNA stability and plays an important role in KSHV-mediated PROX1 upregulation. We found that PROX1 mRNA contains a canonical AU-rich element (ARE) in its 3′-untranslated region that promotes PROX1 mRNA turnover and that kaposin-B stimulates cytoplasmic accumulation of the ARE-binding protein HuR through activation of the p38/MK2 pathway. Moreover, HuR binds to and stabilizes PROX1 mRNA through its ARE and is necessary for KSHV-mediated PROX1 mRNA stabilization. Together, our study demonstrates that kaposin-B plays a key role in PROX1 upregulation during lymphatic reprogramming of blood vascular endothelial cells by KSHV

Correlated Donor Acceptor Crystal Orientation Controls Photocurrent Generation in All Polymer Solar Cells

New polymers with high electron mobilities have spurred research in organic solar cells using polymeric rather than fullerene acceptors due to their potential of increased diversity, stability and scalability. However, all- polymer solar cells have struggled to keep up with the steadily increasing power conversion efficiency of polymer:fullerene cells. The lack of knowledge about the dominant recombination process as well as the missing concluding picture on the role of the semi-crystalline microstructure of conjugated polymers in the free charge carrier generation process impede a systematic optimization of all-polymer solar cells. We examine these issues by combining structural and photo-physical characterization on a series of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (donor) and P(NDI2OD-T2) (acceptor) blend devices. Our experiments reveal that geminate recombination is the major loss channel for photo-excited charge carriers. Advanced X-ray and electron-based studies reveal the effect of chloronaphthalene co-solvent in reducing domain size, altering domain purity and reorienting the acceptor polymer crystals to be coincident with those of the donor. This reorientation correlates well with the increased photocurrent from these devices. Thus, efficient split-up of geminate pairs at polymer/polymer interfaces may necessitate correlated donor/acceptor crystal orientation, which represents an additional requirement compared to the isotropic fullerene acceptors

Description of the ground state wave functions of Ni dithiolenes using sulfur K-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy

Szilagyi RK, Lim BS, Glaser T, et al. Description of the ground state wave functions of Ni dithiolenes using sulfur K-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 2003;125(30):9158-9169.The pterin-dithiolene cofactor is an essential component of the catalytic sites of all molybdoenzymes except nitrogenase. Understanding its bonding to transition metals allows for development of electronic structure/function correlations in catalysis. The electronic structure description for a series of bis(dithiolene) complexes ([NiL2](z), L = 1,2-Me2C2S2; Z = 2-, 1 -, 0) using sulfur XAS provides the basis for extension to the biologically relevant metal-containing dithiolenes. The transition dipole integral has been developed for the dithiolene sulfur through correlation of XAS pre-edge energy positions of sulfide-, thiolate-, and enedithiolate-S. The ground state wave functions of all three NiL2 complexes have more than 50% S character experimentally demonstrating the noninnocent behavior of the dithiolene ligand. The S K-edge experimental results are correlated with spin-unrestricted, broken-symmetry density functional calculations. These show only limited spin polarization in the neutral complex and delocalized, ligand based ground states for the mono- and dianionic complexes. These XAS and DFT results are correlated with other spectroscopic features and provide insight into reactivity