The influence of torsional disorder around the ethynyl π-bridges of a linear D−π–A−π–D molecule on the nature of its S1 excited state was investigated using ultrafast time-resolved infrared ...spectroscopy. By tuning the pump wavelength throughout the S1 ← S0 absorption band, subpopulations with different extents of asymmetry could be excited. In nonpolar solvents, the equilibrated S1 state is symmetric and quadrupolar independently of the initial degree of distortion. Photoexcitation of distorted molecules is followed by planarization and symmetrization of the S1 state. Excited-state symmetry breaking is only observed in polar environments, where the equilibrated S1 state has a strong dipolar character. However, neither the extent nor the rate of symmetry breaking are enhanced in an initially distorted molecule. They are only determined by the polarity and the dynamic properties of the solvent.
Three quadrupolar D−π–A−π–D compounds, bearing alkoxy phenyls as mild electron donors and a benzothiadiazole (A), two benzothiadiazoles (B), or a benzothiadiazole linked to two thiophenes (C) as the ...acceptor units, are collectively the object of this study. They proved to be efficient yellow/orange/red fluorophores, respectively, with fluorescence being their preferred deactivation pathway. These systems exhibited positive fluorosolvatochromism and a noticeable decrease of the fluorescence quantum yield in the most polar solvent (with the quenching following the trend B > A > C). These findings point to an intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) nature of the emitting state, whose photoinduced dynamics was investigated by femtosecond-resolved transient absorption and fluorescence upconversion. Remarkable values of hyperpolarizability were estimated by the solvatochromic method. The significant two-photon absorption cross sections measured for A–C (whose trend nicely parallels that of ICT efficiency), coupled with the intense emission, make them promising for applications as environment-sensitive probes in two-photon excited fluorescence imaging.
In this investigation, we report the first hyperpolarizabilities and two-photon absorption cross sections of a large series of 12 push–pull cationic chromophores. All of these dyes show a dipolar ...acceptor+–π–donor structure, where the nature of the donor and acceptor units and π-bridge was synthetically tuned to allow insightful comparisons among the molecules. The hyperpolarizability was obtained through a solvatochromic method, by exploiting the rare negative solvatochromism exhibited by the investigated compounds. The two-photon absorption cross sections were determined through two-photon excited fluorescence measurements by means of a tunable nanosecond laser system for sample excitation. The nonlinear optical properties were discussed relatively to the photoinduced intramolecular charge transfer occurring in these donor–acceptor systems, investigated by femtosecond transient absorption experiments. We found a strong increase in hyperpolarizability upon increasing the molecular conjugation. Unexpectedly, the hyperpolarizability is almost unaffected by an increase in donor/acceptor strength and intramolecular charge transfer degree. Differently, the two-photon absorption cross sections of these dyes are enhanced by an increase in both molecular conjugation and intramolecular charge transfer efficiency. Several recent literature works have reported at the same time scattered information about the hyperpolarizability and two-photon absorption of small organic molecules. Our investigation is, to the best of our knowledge, the first attempt to uncover detailed structure–property relationships for these two nonlinear optical properties. Our results represent a promising route to achieve large hyperpolarizability and two-photon absorption in push–pull dyes and may drive the design of new efficient nonlinear optical materials.
The identification of novel molecular systems with high fluorescence and significant non-linear optical (NLO) properties is a hot topic in the continuous search for new emissive probes. Here, the ...photobehavior of three two-arm bis(dimethylamino)styrylbenzene derivatives, where the central benzene was replaced by pyridine, furan, or thiophene, was studied by stationary and time-resolved spectroscopic techniques with ns and fs resolution. The three molecules under investigation all showed positive fluorosolvatochromism, due to intramolecular charge-transfer (ICT) dynamics from the electron-donor dimethylamino groups, and significant fluorescence quantum yields, because of the population of a planar and emissive ICT state stabilized by intramolecular hydrogen-bond-like interactions. The NLO properties (hyperpolarizability coefficient and TPA cross-section) were also measured. The obtained results allowed the role of the central heteroaromatic ring to be disclosed. In particular, the introduction of the thiophene ring guarantees high fluorescent quantum yields irrespective of the polarity of the medium, and the largest hyperpolarizability coefficient because of the increased conjugation. An important and structure-dependent involvement of the triplet state was also highlighted, with the intersystem crossing being competitive with fluorescence, especially in the thiophene derivative, where the triplet was found to significantly sensitize molecular oxygen even in polar environment, leading to possible applications in photodynamic therapy.
We report here a joint experimental and theoretical study of a quadrupolar, two-branched pyridinium derivative of interest as a potential non-linear optical material. The spectral and photophysical ...behaviour of this symmetric system is greatly affected by the polarity of the medium. A very efficient photoinduced intramolecular charge transfer, surprisingly more efficient than in the dipolar asymmetric analogue, is found to occur by femtosecond resolved transient absorption spectroscopy. TD-DFT calculations are in excellent agreement with these experimental findings and predict large charge displacements in the molecular orbitals describing the ground state and the lowest excited singlet state. The theoretical study also revealed that in highly polar media the symmetry of the excited state is broken giving a possible explanation to the fluorescence and transient absorption spectra resembling those of the one-branched analogous compound in the same solvents. The present study may give an important insight into the excited state deactivation mechanism of cationic (donor-π-acceptor-π-donor)(+) quadrupolar compounds characterised by negative solvatochromism, which are expected to show significant two-photon absorption (TPA). Moreover, the water solubility of the investigated quadrupolar system may represent an added value in view of the most promising applications of TPA materials in biology and medicine.
In spite of their value as genetically encodable reporters for imaging in living systems, fluorescent proteins have been used sporadically for stimulated emission depletion (STED) super-resolution ...imaging, owing to their moderate photophysical resistance, which does not enable reaching resolutions as high as for synthetic dyes. By a rational approach combining steady-state and ultrafast spectroscopy with gated STED imaging in living and fixed cells, we here demonstrate that F99S/M153T/V163A GFP (c3GFP) represents an efficient genetic reporter for STED, on account of no excited state absorption at depletion wavelengths <600 nm and a long emission lifetime. This makes c3GFP a valuable alternative to more common, but less photostable, EGFP and YFP/Citrine mutants for STED imaging studies targeting the green-yellow region of the optical spectrum.
Small organic molecules arouse lively interest for their plethora of possible biological applications, such as anticancer therapy, for their ability to interact with nucleic acids, or bioimaging, ...thanks to their fluorescence emission. Here, a panchromatic series of styryl-azinium bicationic dyes, which have already proved to exhibit high water-solubility and significant red fluorescence in water, were investigated through spectrofluorimetric titrations to assess the extent of their association constants with DNA and RNA. Femtosecond-resolved transient absorption spectroscopy was also employed to characterize the changes in the photophysical properties of these fluorophores upon interaction with their biological targets. Finally, in vitro experiments conducted on tumor cell lines revealed that some of the bicationic fluorophores had a peculiar localization within cell nuclei exerting important antiproliferative effects, others were instead found to localize in the cytoplasm without leading to cell death, being useful to mark specific organelles in light of live cell bioimaging. Interestingly, this molecule-dependent behavior matched the different amphiphilicity featured by these bioactive compounds, which are thus expected to be caught in a tug-of-war between lipophilicity, ensured by the presence of aromatic rings and needed to pass cell membranes, and hydrophilicity, granted by charged groups and necessary for stability in aqueous media.
Over the last decade there has been a growing convergence between Putin's Russia and West European right-wing populist parties (WERPPs) that are growing in consensus around Europe. Such relationship, ...depicted as "marriage of convenience", benefits both Putin in his quest for the international legitimization of his political regime and WERPPs in their rally for power at both the national and the European levels. Grounded on a mix of populism, opposition to the European Union and radical right-wing ideology, does this marriage survive the Ukrainian crisis or does it transform itself in a "divorce of convenience"? This work uses an original dataset of more than 900k tweets collected in the period between 2013 and 2022 and produced by two Italian populist parties and shows what shapes WERPPs' communication about Russia. Moreover, it empirically demonstrates how fragile, mutable and exposed to the influence of contextual factors this relationship is.
The excited state deactivation pathways of push-pull distyryl furan and benzofuran derivatives in several organic solvents were investigated in detail by using time-resolved transient absorption and ...fluorescence spectroscopies, with nano- and femto-second time resolution. Solvent polarity was found to play a key role in determining the efficiencies of fluorescence, intersystem crossing and internal conversion. The triplet yield gradually decreased, while the internal conversion increased upon increasing the solvent dielectric constant. However the fluorescence showed a different solvent polarity effect in the low and high solvent polarity region, with a reversal of the trend of fluorescence properties (quantum yield and lifetime). This fact points to an emitting state of a different nature (smaller and larger dipole moments) in the two cases, as also suggested by the huge fluorosolvatochromism. In fact the ultrafast spectroscopic investigation evidenced the presence of two transients characterized by peculiar spectral shapes assigned to a locally excited (LE) and a charge transfer (CT) state. In the more polar solvents the CT state was the longer lived, fluorescent one and an intramolecular charge transfer process was found to be operative and to become faster (up to ∼200-250 fs) in the higher polarity media. On the contrary, distyrylfuran, which exhibits the same molecular skeleton without the push-pull character showed a similar excited state dynamics in solvents of different polarities.
The dynamics of the lowest excited singlet state of nitro-substituted aromatic compounds is tuned by the solvent properties.
A series of new naphthalimide and phenothiazine-based push–pull systems (NPI-PTZ1–5), in which we structurally modulate the oxidation state of the sulfur atom in the thiazine ring, i.e., S(II), ...S(IV), and S(VI), was designed and synthesized by the Pd-catalyzed Sonogashira cross-coupling reaction. The effect of the sulfur oxidation state on the spectral, photophysical, and electrochemical properties was investigated. The steady-state absorption and emission results show that oxygen functionalization greatly improves the optical (absorption coefficient and fluorescence efficiency) and nonlinear optical (hyperpolarizability) features. The cyclic voltammetry experiments and the quantum mechanical calculations suggest that phenothiazine is a stronger electron donor unit relative to phenothiazine-5-oxide and phenothiazine-5,5-dioxide, while the naphthalimide is a strong electron acceptor in all cases. The advanced ultrafast spectroscopic measurements, transient absorption, and broadband fluorescence up conversion give insight into the mechanism of photoinduced intramolecular charge transfer. A planar intramolecular charge transfer (PICT) and highly fluorescent excited state are populated for the oxygen-functionalized molecules NPI-PTZ2,3 and NPI-PTZ5; on the other hand, a twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) state is produced upon photoexcitation of the oxygen-free derivatives NPI-PTZ1 and NPI-PTZ4, with the fluorescence being thus significantly quenched. These results prove oxygen functionalization as a new effective synthetic strategy to tailor the photophysics of phenothiazine-based organic materials for different optoelectronic applications. While oxygen-functionalized compounds are highly fluorescent and promising active materials for current-to-light conversion in organic light-emitting diode devices, oxygen-free systems show very efficient photoinduced ICT and may be employed for light-to-current conversion in organic photovoltaics.
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