Photoactivated green fluorescence emission by femtosecond oscillator from indole solutions.

We reported a novel femtosecond-laser-activated fluorescence emission from indole solutions upon excitation by the second harmonic wavelength of a femtosecond oscillator. A new absorption band around 400 nm and corresponding fluorescent band in the green domain were produced after the irradiation of femtosecond laser. This femtosecond-laser-activated luminescence process that allows the use of visible wavelength as a substitute for UV light to excite fluorescence from indole would extend applications based on indole chromophore. Furthermore, the photoactived emission can act as a fluorescence lifetime probe to measure the polarity in complex biological systems since it is polarity-sensitive. High performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detector (HPLC-FLU) and high performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometer (HPLC-MS) analysis demonstrate that the origin of the photoactivated fluorescence is new molecular species that generated in indole solution upon femtosecond laser irradiation.