Electro-optical and laser spectrofluorimetry study of coumarins 7 and 30: evidence for the existence of the close-lying electronic states and conformers

Our experiments and calculations reveal a set of anomalous and interesting properties of coumarin 7 (CU7) and coumarin 30 (CU30) in solution. The spectral dependence of electro-optical coefficients and, consequently, dipole moments indicates that the absorption band is a superposition of several (at least two) electronic transitions. Probably, there are two close-lying π,π* singlet electronic excited states which contribute to the first absorption band. The calculations using the MM2 program show that both dyes in the ground state have two stable plane anti conformers. From time-resolved spectrofluorimetric measurements we obtained evidence for the existence of conformers in paraffin oil so…