Photophysical studies. Screening of the azahemiporphycenes for luminescent properties was done on a Fluorolog 3 fluorescence spectrometer from Horiba (Japan) equipped with a NIRsensitive photomultiplier R2658 from Hamamatsu (Japan). Prior to measurements, toluene solutions of the complexes in a sealable quartz cell (Hellma Analytics, Germany) were deoxygenated by bubbling high purity nitrogen (99.99999%, Linde Gas, Austria) for at least 15 min.