Discrimination in excimer emission quenching of pyrene by nitroaromatics

Abstract Quenching of excimer emission of proximate pyrene units of phenanthro[4,5- fgh ]pyrido[2,3- b ]quinoxaline allows the detection and discrimination of the electron deficient potentially explosive nitroaromatics, and thus could be used to screen the suspected samples, in security related applications. The detection proceeds through a quenching mechanism, which has been explained on the basis of steady state fluorescence and life-time measurements.