Hybrid hard- and soft-modelling applied to analyze ultrafast processes by femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy: Study of the photochromism of salicylidene anilines

Evaluation of the acidic strengths on electronic ground and excited states of proton transfer dye using Excitation-Emission fluorescence matrix (EEM) and Multivariate Curve Resolution with Alternating Least Squares (MCR-ALS)

Multivariate Curve Resolution with Alternating Least Squares (MCR-ALS) was for the first time successfully used to evaluate an intricate photophysical behavior, where deprotonation on the electronic ground state (S₀), intra and intermolecular proton transfer processes (ESPT and ESIPT) on the electronic excited state (S₁) can simultaneously be presented. In this sense, the organic dye 2-(2'-hydroxyphenyl)benzothiazole (HBT) was used as a proof-of-concept model, where MCR-ALS showed to be a powerful tool for discriminate chemical reactions that occur concomitantly on different potential energy surfaces, which include photochemical reactions. As a result, the chemometric method showed to be a straightforward approach for the determination of the acidic strengths of those equilibria were estimated as 8.61 and 1.11 to hydroxyl deprotonation on electronic ground and excited states, respectively.

A Combination of Chemometrics and Quantum Mechanics Methods Applied to Analysis of Femtosecond Transient Absorption Spectrum of Ortho-Nitroaniline

A combination of the advanced chemometrics method with quantum mechanics calculation was for the first time applied to explore a facile yet efficient analysis strategy to thoroughly resolve femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy of ortho-nitroaniline (ONA), served as a model compound of important nitroaromatics and explosives. The result revealed that the ONA molecule is primarily excited to S3 excited state from the ground state and then ultrafast relaxes to S2 state. The internal conversion from S2 to S1 occurs within 0.9 ps. One intermediate state S* was identified in the intersystem crossing (ISC) process, which is different from the specific upper triplet receiver state proposed in some other nitroaromatics systems. The S1 state decays to the S* one within 6.4 ps and then intersystem crossing to the lowest triplet state within 19.6 ps. T1 was estimated to have a lifetime up to 2 ns. The relatively long S* state and very long-lived T1 one should play a vital role as precursors to various nitroaromatic and explosive photoproducts.

Structure and Photochemistry of N-Salicylidene-p-carboxyaniline Isolated in Solid Argon

Infrared matrix isolation spectroscopy and DFT/B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) calculations have been used to characterize the conformational space of the enol-imine and keto-amine tautomers of N-salicylidene-p-carboxyaniline (SCA) in both their E and Z isomeric forms. Monomers of SCA were isolated in an argon matrix (15 K), which was shown to contain only the most stable conformer of the E-enol isomer of the compound. The matrix-isolated E-enol was then subjected to in situ UV irradiation (λ = 335; 345 nm, provided by a laser/MOPO system, or λ > 235 nm, provided by a Hg(Xe) broad-band source), and the photoinduced processes probed by infrared spectroscopy. Two photoreaction channels were observed, with a branching ratio of ∼1:1, corresponding to E-enol → Z-enol isomerization and E-enol → E-keto tautomerization. Both processes were found to be rather effective, with practically complete consumption of the reactant after broad-band irradiation by 1 min only. Identification among the photoproduced species of the Z-enol conformer that differs from the reactant only by E-to-Z isomerization suggests the initial photoproduction of this conformer, which subsequently decays into the lowest energy Z-enol conformer (also identified experimentally). The E-enol → E-keto tautomerization requires an excited state intramolecular proton transfer and twisting about the exocyclic CC bond of the molecule. These processes most probably take place sequentially. However, in the present study the Z-keto isomer, which should act as intermediate in this sequence of processes, could not be detected, most probably due to its short lifetime under the used experimental conditions. On the contrary, the detailed structural and vibrational characterization of the photoproduced E-keto form was successfully achieved.

Expansion dynamics of supercritical water probed by picosecond time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy

Vibrational excitation of liquid water with femtosecond laser pulses can create extreme states of water. Yet, the dynamics directly after initial sub-picosecond delocalization of molecular vibrations remain largely unclear. We study the ultrafast expansion dynamics of an accordingly prepared supercritical water phase with a picosecond time resolution. Our experimental setup combines vacuum-compatible liquid micro-jet technology and a table top High Harmonic light source driven by a femtosecond laser system. An ultrashort laser pulse centered at a wavelength of 2900 nm excites the OH-stretch vibration of water molecules in the liquid. The deposited energy corresponds to a supercritical phase with a temperature of about 1000 K and a pressure of more than 1 GPa. We use a time-delayed extreme ultraviolet pulse centered at 38.6 eV, and obtained via High Harmonic generation (HHG), to record valence band photoelectron spectra of the expanding water sample. The series of photoelectron spectra is analyzed with noise-corrected target transform fitting (cTTF), a specifically developed multivariate method. Together with a simple fluid dynamics simulation, the following picture emerges: when a supercritical phase of water expands into vacuum, temperature and density of the first few nanometers of the expanding phase drop below the critical values within a few picoseconds. This results in a supersaturated phase, in which condensation seeds form and grow from small clusters to large clusters on a 100 picosecond timescale.

Multivariate curve resolution: a review of advanced and tailored applications and challenges

Multivariate curve resolution (MCR) is a widespread methodology for the analysis of process data in many different application fields. This article intends to propose a critical review of the recently published works. Particular attention will be paid to situations requiring advanced and tailored applications of multivariate curve resolution, dealing with improvements in preprocessing methods, multi-set data arrangements, tailored constraints, issues related to non-ideal noise structure and deviation to linearity. These analytical issues are tackling the limits of applicability of MCR methods and, therefore, they can be considered as the most challenging ones.

Baseline correction methods to deal with artifacts in femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy

In femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy, artifact contributions are usually observed at ultra-short time scale. These complex signals are very challenging because of their nature, related to ultrafast phenomena, and because they strongly distort the structure of the spectrokinetic data. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the potential of baseline correction methods for femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy data pre-processing. Indeed, artifacts removal should ideally be performed before multivariate data analysis. The work is thus mainly focused on two different approaches which are filtering by discrete wavelet transform, on the one hand, and smoothing by asymmetric least squares, on the other hand. The results obtained both on simulated data and on femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy data are discussed. It can be concluded that asymmetric least squares smoothing procedure turns out to perform satisfactory for artifacts removal. Indeed, only mild discrepancies are observed in the transient spectra and, most important, good recovery of the kinetics is obtained at ultra-short time scale.

Investigation of ultrafast photoinduced processes for salicylidene aniline in solution and gas phase: toward a general photo-dynamical scheme

Photodynamics of 2-hydroxybenzylideneaniline (photochromic salicylidene aniline SAOH) and N-(2-methoxybenzylidene)aniline (SAOMe) are studied by steady state and transient optical spectroscopy in solution and gas phase at different excitation wavelengths (266, 355 and 390 nm). Two competitive processes are observed from the enol* excited state: on one hand a rotation to get a twisted-enol, and on the other hand an excited state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) followed by a cis-trans isomerisation to get the trans-keto photochromic product. For the first time both processes are characterized at an ultrashort time scale for salicylidene aniline. Resolution of the spectrokinetic data is achieved by multivariate curve resolution and attribution of the intermediate species recovered is performed in comparison with the results obtained for SAOMe, which can only undergo enol rotational isomerisation. It shows that ESIPT and rotation to the twisted-enol for SAOH occur within 100 fs, as predicted by recent quantum dynamical simulations, with an efficiency ratio dependent on the excitation wavelength. Therefore a general photoinduced mechanism for salicylidene aniline is drawn.