Fused Isoindigo Ribbons with Absorption Bands Reaching Near-Infrared.

Through fusing isoindigo (IID) units at 6,7;6',7'-positions, a series of new near-infrared (NIR) absorbing and stable ribbon-like conjugated molecules, namely nIIDs in which n represents the number of IID units, have been synthesized. The optical band gaps of the molecules are lowered from 2.03 eV of 1IID to 1.12 eV of 6IID with the increase of the conjugation length. 3IID, 4IID, and 6IID have strong absorption in the NIR region and exhibit photothermal conversion efficiencies of greater than 50 % under laser irradiation at λ=808 nm.