In
indigo, excited state proton transfer (ESPT) is known to be
associated with the molecular mechanism responsible for highly efficient
radiationless deactivation. When this route is blocked (partially
or totally), new deactivation routes become available. Using new green
chemistry procedures, with favorable green chemistry metrics, monosubstitution
and disubstitution of N group(s) in indigo, by tert-butoxy carbonyl groups, N-(tert-butoxycarbonyl)indigo (NtBOCInd) and N,N′-(tert-butoxycarbonyl)indigo (N,N’tBOCInd),
respectively, were synthetically accomplished. The compounds display
red to purple colors depending on the solvent and substitution. Different
excited-state deactivation pathways were observed and found to be
structure- and solvent-dependent. Trans–cis photoisomerization was found to be absent with NtBOCInd and present
with N,N’tBOCInd in nonpolar solvents. Time-resolved fluorescence
experiments revealed single-exponential decays for the two compounds
which, linked to time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT)
studies, show that with NtBOCInd ESPT is extremely fast and barrierlesspredicted
to be 1 kJ mol–1 in methylcyclohexane and 5 kJ mol–1 in dimethylsulfoxide, which contrasts with
∼11 kJ mol–1 experimentally obtained for
indigo. An alternative ESPT, competitive with the N–H···OC
intramolecular pathway, involving dimer units is also probed by TDDFT
and found to be consistent with the experimentally observed time-resolved
data. N,N’tBOCInd, where ESPT is precluded, shows solvent-dependent trans–cis/cis–trans photoisomerization
and is surprisingly found to be more stable in the nonemissive cis conformation, whose deactivation to S0 is
found to be solvent-dependent.