Excited state deactivation properties
and the effects of solvent
hydrogen bonding (HB) on the photophysical behavior of 2,2′-dypyridylamine
(DPyA) were investigated by steady state and time-resolved fluorescence
experiments, molecular docking, and density functional theory (DFT)
calculations. In addition to the polarity effect, the contributions
of solvent HB donation (HBD) acidity and HB acceptance (HBA) basicity
to modulate the solvatochromic spectral properties were estimated
from multiparametric linear regression analysis using Kamlet–Taft
(KT) and Catalán formalisms. The importance of C–N bond
torsion, leading to the trans → cis conversion, was manifested by substantial increase in DPyA fluorescence
yield in the presence of cyclodextrin (CD) and glycerol. The unusually
low fluorescence yield in aqueous medium was explained on the basis
of synergistic effect of solvent hydrogen bonding combined with excited
state conformational isomerization, which renders DPyA to be an excellent
environment sensitive fluorescence reporter. The experimental results
were verified with structural insights obtained from DFT calculations
at B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) level and construction of potential energy
surface (PES) in the ground state as well as in the excited states.