Hydrogen bonding of aromatic amines in hydroxylic solvents 2. Absorption and emission spectroscopy of substituted 7-aminocoumarins and 7-aminocarbostyrils

Core remodeling leads to long wavelength fluoro-coumarins

Low molecular weight, uncharged far-red and NIR dyes would be enabling for a range of imaging applications. Rational redesign of the coumarin scaffold leads to Fluoro-Coumarins (FCs), the lowest molecular weight dyes with emission maxima beyond 700, 800, and 900 nm. FCs display large Stokes shifts and high environmental sensitivity, with a 40-fold increase in emission intensity in hydrophobic solvents. Untargeted variants exhibit selective lipid droplet and nuclear staining in live cells. Furthermore, sulfo-lipid derivatization enables active targeting to the plasma membrane. Overall, these studies report a promising platform for the development of biocompatible, context-responsive imaging agents.

Fluoro-Coumarins are a novel class of far-red and near-infrared solvent sensitive dyes of exceptionally low molecular weight.

An intermolecular hydrogen-bonding effect on spectral and photophysical properties of 6-aminocoumarin in protic solvents

The paper presents results of the spectral (absorption and emission) and photophysical study of 6-aminocoumarin (6AC) in strong protic solvents with different hydrogen-bond acidity. The measurements of the fluorescence lifetime and quantum yield clearly show that in protic solvents intermolecular hydrogen-bonding interactions between solute and solvent molecules facilitate the nonradiative processes. It is suggested that in these solvents very efficient internal conversion due to intermolecular hydrogen-bonding is induced. A large isotope effect is found for 6AC in deuterated water.

General Time Dependent Approach to Vibronic Spectroscopy Including Franck-Condon, Herzberg-Teller, and Duschinsky Effects

An effective time-dependent (TD) approach to compute vibrationally resolved optical spectra from first principles is presented for the computation of one-photon electronic spectra induced by either electric or magnetic transition dipoles or by their mutual interaction, namely absorption, emission, and circular dichroism. Particular care has been devoted to generality, modularity, and numerical stability including all the contributions that play a role at the harmonic level of approximation, namely Franck-Condon, Herzberg-Teller, and Dushinsky (i.e., mode mixing) effects. The implementation shares the same general framework of our previous time-independent (TI) model, thus allowing an effective integration between both approaches with the consequent enhancement of their respective strengths (e.g., spectrum completeness and straightforward account of temperature effects for the TD route versus band resolution and assignment for the TI route) using a single set of starting data. Implementation of both models in the same general computer program allows comprehensive studies using several levels of electronic structure description together with effective account of environmental effects by atomistic and/or continuum models of different sophistication. A few medium-size molecules (furan, phenyl radical, anthracene, dimethyloxirane, coumarin 339) have been studied in order to fully validate the approach.