Real Time Quantification of Ultrafast Photoinduced Bimolecular Electron Transfer Rate: Direct Probing of the...

Fluorescence quenching studies through steady-state and time-resolved measurements are inadequate to quantify the bimolecular electron transfer rate in bulk homogeneous solution due to constraints from diffusion. To nullify the effect of diffusion, direct evaluation of the rate of formation of a transient intermediate produced upon the electron transfer is essential. Methyl viologen, a well-known electron acceptor, produces a radical cation after accepting an electron, which has a characteristic strong and broad absorption band centered at 600 nm. Hence it is a good choice to evaluate the rate of photoinduced electron transfer reaction employing femtosecond broadband transient absorption spectroscopy. The time constant of the aforementioned process between pyrene and methyl viologen in methanol has been estimated to be 2.5 ± 0.4 ps using the same technique. The time constant for the backward reaction was found to be 14 ± 1 ps. These values did not change with variation of concentration of quencher, i.e., methyl viologen. Hence, we can infer that diffusion has no contribution in the estimation of rate constants. However, on changing the solvent from methanol to ethanol, the time constant of the electron transfer reaction has been found to increase and has accounted for the change in solvent reorganization energy.