Green emitting photoproducts from terrylene diimide after red illumination

The spectral properties of emissive photoproducts, formed upon 633 nm irradiation of a terrylene diimide dye, were investigated. Ensemble and single-molecule level experiments were conducted by immobilizing the TDI dye molecules in a polystyrene film. In the bulk experiments, green emission could be observed from the photobleached areas (photobleached with 633 nm light) when excited with 480 or 514 nm light. Similar phenomena were also observed at the single-molecule level. On the basis of the single-molecule experiments, a conversion efficiency of about 5% was estimated for the formation of emissive spectrally blue-shifted photoproducts. These green emissive photoproducts have spectral properties that resemble those of lower rylene homologues, e.g. perylene diimide or perylene monoimide. Our results indicate that the formation of blue-shifted emissive photoproducts can have implications for analyzing single-molecule FRET experiments or multiple color-labeled fluorescent systems.