Environmental effects on luminescence of meso-tetra-2-chlorophenylporphyrin

Effects of solvent polarity on the photophysical behaviour of meso-tetra-2-chlorophenylporphyrin have been studied by means of steady-state absorption and fluorescence, as well as time-resolved fluorescence techniques. A non-mirror symmetric absorption and emission spectra due to vibronic borrowing were obtained. Time-resolved fluorescence study indicated the bi-exponential decay kinetics for both the emission bands, observed in steady-state emission spectra. Such findings implied that there exists two emitting species on the photoinduced conformational excursions of the excited-state equilibrium and also that their relative contributions to emission change with solvent polarity. Monte Carlo conformational search based on force-field molecular mechanics was performed to locate equilibrium conformers in the ground state which enable evaluation of the ground-state barrier energies. This was followed by CIS and ZINDO calculations to explore the excited-state barriers.