Abstract

Metalloporphyrins are important in a variety of biological functions, such as oxygen transport, electron transfer, and energy conversion. To understand their ability to bind ligands and participate in electron transfer reactions, the excited state dynamics of these complex molecules must be elucidated. In non-coordinating solvents, photoexcitation of NiOEP leads to the formation of a relatively long lived excited state (*B_lg) that decays to the ¹A_lg ground state in ≈300ps(1,2). To further investigate the excited state dynamics, we undertook a subpicosecond transient absorption study in chloroform and methylene chloride. We observed the appearance of transient absorption bands in <2ps and spectral evolution of the transient bands (see figure 1).

© 1990 Optical Society of America