Effects of long-wavelength fluorescence excitation in N, N′-dimethylaminobenzonitrile liquid solutions

Abstract

We have studied the properties of the emission, absorption, and excitation of dual fluorescence of N,N′-dimethylaminobenzonitrile in a set of solvents of different polarity under selective irradiation of solutions by light with different energies of quanta in the range of the long-wavelength absorption band. In all cases, dual fluorescence is observed, which is caused by emission from locally excited Franck-Condon and charge-transfer states. A change in the energy of excitation quanta has no effect on the position of the fluorescence bands; however, the intensity ratio between the bands noticeably changes in favor of the intensity of the long-wavelength band, which belongs to the charge-transfer state. To explain the observed effects, we involve data of quantum-mechanical calculations, which show that there is a considerable probability of occurrence in solutions of these systems of rotational isomers that differ in the orientation of the dimethylamino group with respect to benzonitrile. In the excited state, these rotamers have different charge-transfer reaction rates, which leads to a change in the intensity ratio of the observed fluorescence bands upon using the selective excitation.