Facile one-pot synthesis of unprecedented β,β'-linked porphyrin-chlorin heterodimers.

A type of porphyrin-chlorin heterodimers have been synthesized in a one-pot reaction, and their porphyrin and chlorin moieties are directly beta,beta'-linked through an sp(3) carbon. These species have been characterized by mass spectroscopy, H-1 NMR, X-ray crystallography, cyclic voltammetry, UV-vis and fluorescence spectroscopy.