Surface-fixation induced emission is a fluorescence enhancement
phenomenon, which is expressed when dye molecules satisfy a specific
adsorption condition on the anionic clay surface. The photophysical
behaviors of two types of cationic acridinium derivatives [10-methylacridinium
perchlorate (Acr
+
) and 10-methyl-9-phenylacridinium perchlorate
(PhAcr
+
)] on the synthetic saponites with different anionic
charge densities were investigated. Under the suitable conditions,
the fluorescence quantum yield (Φ
f
) of PhAcr
+
was enhanced 22.3 times by the complex formation with saponite
compared to that in water without saponite. As the inter-negative
charge distance of saponite increased from 1.04 to 1.54 nm, the Φ
f
of PhAcr
+
increased 1.25 times. In addition, the
increase in the negative charge distance caused the increase in the
integral value of the extinction coefficient and the radiative deactivation
rate constant (
k
f
) and the decrease in
the nonradiative deactivation rate constant. It should be noted that
the 2.3 times increase in
k
f
is the highest
among the reported values for the effect of clay. From these results,
it was concluded that the photophysical properties of dyes can be
modulated by changing the charge density of clay minerals.