Fluorescence,fluorescence-excitation and absorption spectra of trans-1-(2-anthryl)-2-phenylethene conformers

Fluorescence spectra of trans-1-(2-anthryl)-2-phenylethene (APE) obtained under varying conditions of excitation wavelength and oxygen concentration in toluene are resolved into two distinct components by application of principal component analysis with self-modeling (PCA-SM). Self-modeling is guided by the constraint that Stem-Volmer quenching plots for the individual conformers be independent of excitation wavelength. The same process applied on a matrix of fluorescence-excitation spectra leads to resolved conformer-specific fluorescence-excitation spectra. Consistency between the fluorescence and the fluorescence-excitation spectrum of each conformer is established. The fluorescence-excitation spectr and literature fluorescence quantum yields are used to resolve the UV absorption spectrum of APE. The pure conformer spectra obtained in this work are compared with those from earlier PCA-SM treatments in which self-modeling procedures were based on the Lawton and Sylvestre nonnegativity constraint and on a maximal spectral dissimilarity constraint.