ELECTRONICALLY EXCITED PRODUCTS IN THE PHOTODISSOCIATION OF Di-9-METHYLANTHRACENE

Abstract— Although the vast majority of photochemical reactions in condensed phase lead directly to product molecules in the ground states it might be expected that in favorable cases a certain fraction of the reacting species would escape deactivation long enough to attain the product configuration adiabatically in an electronically excited state. In this communication, we report that di-9-methylanthracene, in addition to its normal diabatic course, also leads to small but finite amounts of both excited singlet monomer and excimer species. Oxygen quenching experiments seem to indicate that the monomer and excimer are derived from excited di-9-methylanthracene with little mutual interconversion. The fluorescence yields were determined for these processes in aerated solution at room temperature to be φ₁= 0·00040 ± 0·00005 and φ₂= 0·00037 ± 0·00005 for monomer and excimer species, respectively.