Features of Emission and Absorption of Indotricarbocyanine Dyes on Excitation to Higher Electronic States

Abstract

The manifestation of ion pairs in the absorption and emission of fluorescence by symmetric indotricarbocyanine dyes with the same cation and anions Br, I, and BF4 in ethanol, methylene chloride, and dichlorobenzene has been investigated. It is shown that the formation of ion pairs on passing to low-polarity solvents, along with the changes in the electronic absorption and emission spectra, manifests itself in the polarization and fluorescence excitation spectra. We were the first to establish that the presence of an equilibrium mixture of contact ion pairs and free ions in solutions has an effect on the position and probabilities of transitions not only for the first but also for higher excited singlet states of the molecules of polymethine dyes. The formation of ion pairs manifests itself more clearly when the spectral-luminescence properties of compounds in the shortwave spectral region are analyzed. It has been established that marked changes arise in the absorption, excitation, emission, and polarization fluorescence spectra, as well as in the lifetime and quantum yield of fluorescence in this spectral region when the solvent is changed.