Fundamentals of Photochemistry: Excited State Formation/Deactivation and Energy Transfer Processes

Abstract

Research on the photochemical behavior of coordination compounds began in the early 1970s with fundamental investigations of their excited states and photoreactivities. These investigations continue to be of great importance in the present day since they are the basis of knowledge for the evolution of each light-activated system that is being developed. Much was understood about mechanisms of deactivation of excited states, energy and/or electron transfer and proton-coupled to the electron transfer, which allowed to establish strategies to synthesize molecular structures with better functionality. In this chapter, we have discussed the fundamental concepts of photochemistry and photophysics of coordination compounds, the challenges already achieved, and the continuous pursuit to correlate fundamental with practical applications so that in the future it can be developed devices capable of performing important functions by receiving an external stimulus such as light, electrons, and ions.