A femtosecond study of photoinduced electron transfer from dimethylaniline to coumarin dyes in a cetyltrimethylammonium bromide micelle

Ultrafast photoinduced electron transfer (PET) from N,N-dimethylaniline to coumarin dyes in cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) micelle is studied using femtosecond upconversion spectroscopy. The rate of PET in a CTAB micelle is found to be highly nonexponential with components much faster (approximately 10 ps) than the slow components of solvation dynamics. The ultrafast components of electron transfer exhibits a bell-shaped dependence on the free energy change which is similar to the Marcus inversion.