A femtosecond study of excitation wavelength dependence of solvation dynamics in a PEO-PPO-PEO triblock copolymer micelle.
Excitation wavelength (lambdaex) dependence of solvation dynamics of coumarin 480 (C480) in the micellar core of a water soluble triblock copolymer, PEO20-PPO70-PEO20 (Pluronic P123), is studied by femtosecond and picosecond time resolved emission spectroscopies. In the P123 micelle, the width of the emission spectrum of C480 is found to be much larger than that in bulk water. This suggests that the P123 micelle is more heterogeneous than bulk water. The steady state emission maximum of C480 in P123 micelle shows a significant red edge excitation shift by 25 nm from 453 nm at lambdaex=345 nm to 478 nm at lambdaex=435 nm. The solvation dynamics in the interior of the triblock copolymer micelle is found to depend strongly on the excitation wavelength. The excitation wavelength dependence is ascribed to a wide distribution of locations of C480 molecules in the P123 micelle with two extreme environments-a bulklike peripheral region with very fast solvent response and a very slow core region. With increase in lambdaex, contribution of the bulklike region having an ultrafast component (< or =2 ps) increases from 7% at lambdaex=375 nm to 78% at lambda(ex)=425 nm while the contribution of the ultraslow component (4500 ps) decreases from 79% to 17%.
Sen
Pratik
P
Physical Chemistry Department, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Jadavpur, Kolkata 700 032, India.
Ghosh
Subhadip
S
Sahu
Kalyanasis
K
Mondal
Sudip Kumar
SK
Roy
Durba
D
Bhattacharyya
Kankan
K
D000042:Absorption; D000465:Algorithms; D016880:Anisotropy; D002627:Chemistry, Physical / Q000379:methods*; D008823:Micelles; D008956:Models, Chemical; D015233:Models, Statistical; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011092:Polyethylene Glycols / Q000737:chemistry*; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry; D011409:Propylene Glycols / Q000737:chemistry*; D012997:Solvents / Q000737:chemistry; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence; D013997:Time Factors
D008823:Micelles; C116176:PEO-PPO-PEO; D011108:Polymers; D011409:Propylene Glycols; D012997:Solvents; D011092:Polyethylene Glycols