Dynamics of the solute-solvent interactions of electronically excited 4-N,N-dimethylaminobenzonitrile (DMABN) and of 3,5,N,N-tetramethyl-4-aminobenzonitrile (TMABN) dissolved in viscous alcohols and in a viscous nitrile

Abstract The time dependence of the fluorescence of solutions of 4-N,N-dimethylaminobenzonitrile (DMABN) and 3,5,N,N-tetramethyl-4-aminobenzonitrile (TMA BN) in neat polar solvents has been investigated, using a 25 ps UV-laser pulse for excitation and a streak camera for detection. Both the compounds DMABN and TMABN exhibit normal fluorescence F N and anomalous fluorescence F A , but all the solutions of TMABN show merely a single band in the fluorescence spectrum, which is a superposition of the bands F N and F A . In the case of DMABN the fluorescence in the region λ N dominates, the fluorescence decays tri-exponentially due to fluorescence from three types of species, namely excited solute-solvent complexes, excited bare solutes and solute-solvent exciplexes. Within the lifetime of these emitting species there is probably no reverse reaction from exciplexes to excited solute-solvent complexes or excited bare solutes. This is in contrast with a previously presented picture, which includes such a reverse reaction. In the case of the solution of DMABN in n -butanol, the fluorescence at λ