Supramolecular Polymerization as a Tool to Reveal the Magnetic Transition Dipole Moment of Heptazines

Heptazine derivatives have attracted significant interest due to their small S₁-T₁ gap, which contributes to their unique electronic and optical properties. However, the nature of the lowest excited state remains ambiguous. In the present study, we characterize the lowest optical transition of heptazine by its magnetic transition dipole moment. To measure the magnetic transition dipole moment, the flat heptazine must be chiroptically active, which is difficult to achieve for single heptazine molecules. Therefore, we used supramolecular polymerization as an approach to make homochiral stacks of heptazine derivatives. Upon formation of the supramolecular polymers, the preferred helical stacking of heptazine introduces circular polarization of absorption and fluorescence. The magnetic transition dipole moments for the S₁ ← S₀ and S₁ → S₀ are determined to be 0.35 and 0.36 Bohr magneton, respectively.

These high values of magnetic transition dipole moments support the intramolecular charge transfer nature of the lowest excited state from nitrogen to carbon in heptazine and further confirm the degeneracy of S₁ and T₁.