Triarylamine-perchlorotriphenylmethyl radicals (TARA-PCTM) may be viewed as open-shell mixed valence donor-acceptor compounds that exhibit strong charge-transfer (CT) bands in the visible to NIR spectral region. While open-shell molecules generally do not fluoresce at RT, we observed a surprisingly strong fluorescence from the highly polar excited CT state of the TARA-PCTM radicals in the visible and NIR spectral region. The fluorescence quantum yield is enhanced by a factor of up to 150 compared to the unsubstituted perchlorotriphenylmethyl radical. The enhancement depends on the donor strength of the TARA moiety which was tuned by small substituents (OMe, Me, Cl, CN, and NO 2 ) attached to the phenyl groups, thus forming a series of donor-acceptor species that mainly differ by the free energy difference of the excited CT state and the ground state. The reorganization parameters of the CT process were extracted by Bixon-Jortner fits to either the absorption or the fluorescence bands. The dynamics of the nonradiative back-electron transfer were investigated by time-resolved fluorescence and transient absorption spectroscopy in the ps to ns time regime. We observed a strong deviation of the back-electron transfer rate from the expected inverted Marcus behavior which might be due to anharmonic effects.
The structure and dynamics of the C A22 electronically excited state of the benzyl radical, C7H7, were investigated by nanosecond and femtosecond pump-probe photoionization. A free jet of benzyl radicals was generated by flash pyrolysis from the precursors 2-phenylethyl nitrite and toluene. Nanosecond multiphoton ionization spectra show a number of vibronic bands that are excited in the wavelength range of 290–310 nm. At excitation wavelengths of 305, 301, and 298 nm, rapid biexponential decay of the excited states was observed. Lifetimes at the C-state origin (305 nm excitation) are 400 fs and 4.5 ps. The lifetimes decrease with increasing excitation energy. The dynamics can be understood within a two-step internal conversion to the electronic ground state.
The excited-state dynamics of the singlet carbene propadienylidene, l-C(3)H(2), were investigated by femtosecond time-resolved photoionisation. The carbene was excited into the C (1)A(1) state with 250 nm pulses and the subsequent excited state dynamics were probed by multiphoton ionization with 800 nm pulses. The lifetime of the C (1)A(1) state was determined to be 70 fs. In agreement with recent nanosecond experiments, we assume that the carbene deactivates to the electronic ground state where it subsequently dissociates. Since propadienylidene was generated from 3-bromo-1-iodopropyne, two further radical intermediates were studied, IC(3)H(2) and C(3)H(2)Br. For both species, an ultrafast excited state decay was observed with an upper limit of 40 fs for the respective lifetimes.
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