Photoionization and time-dependent stokes shift of coumarin 307 in soft matter: solvation and radical-ion pair recombination dynamics.

Photoionization, fluorescence time-dependent Stokes shift (TDSS), and rotational dynamics of coumarin 307 (C307) have been investigated in soft matter system such as micelles using time-resolved transient absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy. Photoionization of C307 leads to the formation of coumarin radical cation and hydrated electron, which were characterized by their respective transient absorption. The photoionization yields are significantly higher in anionic sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) micelle than in cationic cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and neutral Triton X-100 (TX-100) micelles, indicating the influence of micellar surface charge on the efficient separation of radical cation-hydrated electron pair. The CTAB micelle favors the recombination of radical cation and hydrated electron leading to the formation of triplet state of C307, which causes a decrease in the photoionization yield. C307 exhibits TDSS in all micelles; the time evolution and the magnitude of the TDSS depend on nature of the micelle. In TX-100 micelles, the decay of the TDSS exhibits ultraslow component (165 ns) and is affected by the presence of electron scavengers. The ultraslow component in TX-100 micelle originates from the recombination of radical cation-hydrated electron, which results in the formation of twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) state; such formation of TICT state was not observed in SDS and CTAB micelles. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report where the radical-ion pair recombination dynamics is probed using TDSS in combination with time-resolved transient absorption studies. The activation energy for the solvent relaxation and radical-ion pair (solvent separated) recombination process was found to be 6.1 and 3.0 kcal mol(-1), respectively. Temperature effect on TDSS in TX-100 micelles confirmed the increase in the water hydration, and size of the micelle influences the relative contribution of the solvation and radical-ion pair recombination dynamics toward the total TDSS. We propose that TDSS observed in neutral micelles and reported in other biomolecules such as proteins by the 7-amino coumarin probe is not only due to the solvation dynamics alone but also due to the radical-ion pair recombination dynamics.