Development of organic photocatalysts and photosensitisers
has had significant interest in the past decade as they are
cheaper and less toxic than traditional phosphorescent transition metal complexes, lending to their application in biological fluorescence imaging and photodynamic therapy [0–0].
BODIPY (0,0-difluoro-0-bora-0a,0a-diaza-s-indacene) is an
extremely versatile organic dye with strong visible-light absorption and high fluorescence quantum yields [0]. BODIPY’s versatility arises from the broad tolerance of the corresponding
aldehyde and pyrrole starting materials that can be used to
install substituents on any of the 0 ring positions (Fig. 0)[0].
Additionally, the core is easily post-synthetically modified
and allows the fine tuning of photophysical properties to tune
the absorption maximum wavelength (λmax) and modulate the
emissive properties [0]. For these reasons, BODIPY derivatives
have been employed as photosensitisers for the generation of
singlet oxygen, which can be activated at lower energy wavelengths of light relative to transition-metal complexes [0–00]