An experimental and theoretical study of solvent hydrogen-bond-donating capacity effects on ultrafast intramolecular charge transfer of LD 490.

The excited-state intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) of LD 490 were investigated in different hydrogen-bond-donating solvents (α scale) on the basis of the Kamlet-Taft solvatochromic parameters (π*, α, β). The femtosecond transient absorption spectra and the kinetics decay rate reveal that with an increase of solvent's α capacity, the long-lived picosecond process, which is attributed to the ICT, becomes much faster. Combining with time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) calculations, we demonstrate that the enhancement of α acidity substantially increases the electronegativity of the carbonyl oxygen in LD 490, which strengthen excited-state intermolecular hydrogen bonding interactions and consequently facilitate the ICT process.