Transient IR Spectroscopic Observation of Singlet and Triplet States of 2‑Nitrofluorene: Revisiting the Photophysics of Nitroaromatics

The dynamics of 2-nitrofluorene (2-NF) in deuterated acetonitrile is studied using UV pump, IR probe femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. Upon excitation to the vibrationally excited S₁ state, the excited-state population of 2-NF branches into two different relaxation pathways. One route leads to intersystem crossing (ISC) to the triplet manifold within a few hundred femtoseconds and the other to internal conversion (IC) to the ground state. The experiments indicate that after relaxation to the energetic minimum on S₁, 2-NF undergoes internal conversion to the ground state in about 15 ps. IC within the triplet manifold is also observed as the initially populated triplet state relaxes to T₁ in about 6 ps. Rotational anisotropy measurements corroborate the assignment of the transient IR frequencies and indicate a rotational diffusion time of 2-NF in the solvent of about 14 ps. The combined set of results provides a unified picture of the dynamics in photoexcited 2-NF. This to our knowledge is the first example using femtosecond vibrational spectroscopy for the study of the fundamental photoinduced processes in nitroaromatic compounds

Surprising Intrinsic Photostability of the Disulfide Bridge Common in Proteins

For a molecule to survive evolution and to become a key building block in nature, photochemical stability is essential. The photolytically weak S–S bond does not immediately seem to possess that ability. We mapped the real-time motion of the two sulfur radicals that result from disulfide photolysis on the femtosecond time scale and found the reason for the existence of the S–S bridge as a natural building block in folded structures. The sulfur atoms will indeed move apart on the excited state but only to oscillate around the S–S center of mass. At long S–S distances, there is a strong coupling to the ground state, and the oscillatory motion enables the molecules to continuously revisit that particular region of the potential energy surface. When a structural feature such as a ring prevents the sulfur radicals from flying apart and thus assures a sufficient residence time in the active region of the potential energy surface, the electronic energy is converted into less harmful vibrational energy, thereby restoring the S–S bond in the ground state