Photophysical properties of intramolecular charge transfer in two newly synthesized tribranched donor-pi-acceptor chromophores.

The nature of optical excitation and the degree of intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) as well as the dynamics of excited ICT states of two new tribranched donor-pi-acceptor molecules with acceptor-terminated (DA(3)) and acceptor-centered (AD(3)) geometries have been investigated by steady-state and femtosecond time-resolved stimulated emission fluorescence depletion (FS TR-SEP FD) measurements in different polar solvents. The interpretation of the experimental results is based on the comparative investigation of the two D-pi-A compounds with respect to the model monomer counterpart (DA). The larger solvatochromic effects and stronger solvent dependence of spectral properties of DA(3) than that of AD(3) indicate that the excited ICT state of DA(3) possesses higher polarity and larger dipole moments compared to those of AD(3). The similarity of absorption and strong solvent-dependent fluorescence spectra of DA(3) and DA reveals that the excited-state properties of DA(3) are identical to that of the model DA, which localized on one of the branches in DA(3). In contrast to DA(3), the large red shift in the absorption and the small Stokes shift of AD(3) suggest the formation of a delocalized ICT state to a certain extent in the excited state of AD(3). The dynamic behavior of excited ICT states for all three compounds are also investigated by femtosecond time-resolved stimulated emission depletion (FS TR-SEP FD) measurements, where the excited-state relaxations are highly dependent on both solvent polarity and the polar degree of the excited ICT states. Furthermore, the steady-state fluorescence excitation anisotropy shows that the intramolecular excitation transfer among the three disorder-induced localized ICT states with nondegenerate transition dipole moments is involved within DA(3). Compared to DA(3), a substantial red shift in the absorption of AD(3) results from the formation of a delocalized ICT state, where the specific excitation anisotropy spectrum shows that the excitation energy is mainly redistributed between the localized ICT state and the delocalized ICT state.