One-dimensionally conjugated carbocyanine dyes are of
significant
research interest, particularly for their electronic photoexcitation,
owing to a wide variety of characteristics, including a good analogy
to “free electrons in a one-dimensional box” model and trans–cis photoisomerization along
the conjugated chain. Despite these important aspects, their electronic
spectra remain ambiguous in terms of their assignment owing to the
significant effects of their surrounding environment. In this study,
we present the electronic spectra of two cyanine dyes, 1,1′-diethyl-2,2′-carbocyanine
(pinacyanol, 1) and 1,1′-diethyl-4,4′-carbocyanine
(cryptocyanine, 2), measured under cold (∼10 K)
gas-phase conditions, to determine the intrinsic electronic transition
energy and provide clear assignments for the spectra. The obtained
visible photodissociation spectra demonstrate (1) spectral shifts
in response to both solvent and temperature, (2) the contribution
from the vibrational excitation in the excited state (Franck–Condon
(FC) activity), and (3) the coexistence of conformers caused by the
orientation of the side ethyl groups. These factors affect the electronic
transition energy up to ∼1000 cm–1 in total
for both 1 and 2, which corresponds to an
effective length of 0.5 Å in terms of the “one-dimensional
box” model. Furthermore, a difference was observed in the effective
bandwidth of the spectra between 1 and 2 based on a comparison with the simulated FC patterns around the
origin band; the bandwidth was substantially larger for 2 than that of 1, implying the shorter lifetime of 2 in the photoexcited S1 state. With the aid of
density functional theory (DFT) calculations of the relaxed potential
energy curves, we partly ascribed this to the fast trans–cis photoisomerization via CC bond
twisting on the S1 surface, followed by S1–S0 internal conversion.