Strong light–matter coupling enables the possibility of changing the properties of molecules, without modifying their chemical structures, thus enabling a completely new way to study chemistry and explore materials.

This article presents the first evidence that the DNA base analogue 1,3-diaza-2-oxophenoxazine, tCO, is highly fluorescent, both as free nucleoside and incorporated in an arbitrary DNA structure. tCO is thoroughly characterized with respect to its photophysical properties and structural performance in single- and double-stranded oligonucleotides. The lowest energy absorption band at 360 nm (ε = 9000 M−1 cm−1) is dominated by a single in-plane polarized electronic transition and the fluorescence, centred at 465 nm, has a quantum yield of 0.3. When incorporated into double-stranded DNA, tCO shows only minor variations in fluorescence intensity and lifetime with neighbouring bases, and the average quantum yield is 0.22. These features make tCO, on average, the brightest DNA-incorporated base analogue so far reported. Furthermore, it base pairs exclusively with guanine and causes minimal perturbations to the native structure of DNA. These properties make tCO a promising base analogue that is perfectly suited for e.g. photophysical studies of DNA interacting with macromolecules (proteins) or for determining size and shape of DNA tertiary structures using techniques such as fluorescence anisotropy and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET).

Strong coupling between light and matter leads to the spontaneous formation of hybrid light–matter states, having different energies than the uncoupled states. This opens up for new ways of modifying the energy landscape of molecules without changing their atoms or structure. Heavy metal-free organic light emitting diodes (OLED) use reversed intersystem crossing (RISC) to harvest light from excited triplet states. This is a slow process, thus increasing the rate of RISC could potentially enhance OLED performance. Here we demonstrate selective coupling of the excited singlet state of Erythrosine B without perturbing the energy level of a nearby triplet state. The coupling reduces the triplet–singlet energy gap, leading to a four-time enhancement of the triplet decay rate, most likely due to an enhanced rate of RISC. Furthermore, we anticipate that strong coupling can be used to create energy-inverted molecular systems having a singlet ground and lowest excited state.

We present the first nucleobase analog fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-pair. The pair consists of tC(O), 1,3-diaza-2-oxophenoxazine, as an energy donor and the newly developed tC(nitro), 7-nitro-1,3-diaza-2-oxophenothiazine, as an energy acceptor. The FRET-pair successfully monitors distances covering up to more than one turn of the DNA duplex. Importantly, we show that the rigid stacking of the two base analogs, and consequently excellent control of their exact positions and orientations, results in a high control of the orientation factor and hence very distinct FRET changes as the number of bases separating tC(O) and tC(nitro) is varied. A set of DNA strands containing the FRET-pair at wisely chosen locations will, thus, make it possible to accurately distinguish distance- from orientation-changes using FRET. In combination with the good nucleobase analog properties, this points toward detailed studies of the inherent dynamics of nucleic acid structures. Moreover, the placement of FRET-pair chromophores inside the base stack will be a great advantage in studies where other (biomacro)molecules interact with the nucleic acid. Lastly, our study gives possibly the first truly solid experimental support to the dependence of energy transfer efficiency on orientation of involved transition dipoles as predicted by the Forster theory.