Optical Dichroism of Hemicyanine-Incorporated Zeolite Monolayer Self-Assembled on Glass Plate

Abstract

Hemicyanine dye molecules were put into the pores of a uniformly-oriented zeolite (silicalite-1) film self-assembled on a glass substrate. The anisotropy of the incorporated molecules in this film was studied by measuring the absorption with linearly polarized light. With 45 incidence, the absorption of p-polarized light was 9.3 times larger than that of s-polarized light, indicating the dye molecules were preferentially aligned normal to the plate along the vertical channel of the pore. On the other hand, the fluorescence anisotropy measured by using excitation on the edge of the film with linearly polarized light by confocal microscope was as much as 50. We propose that light scattering in an uneven silicalite film was the main cause of the discrepancy in observed anisotropy.