The lowest excited singlet state of isolated 1-phenyl-1,3-butadiene and 1-phenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene.

We report vibrationally resolved S0→S1 excitation spectra and vibronic level decay times for the phenyl-substituted polyenes 1-phenylbutadiene and 1-phenylhexatriene seeded in supersonic He expansions. This information was obtained using one- and two-color resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization techniques. The shift in the excitation energy of the lowest excited singlet state upon deuteration of the phenyl ring demonstrates that in 1-phenylbutadiene S1 is mainly an excitation of the benzene ring while in 1-phenylhexatriene S1 is mainly the 2 1Ag state of hexatriene. Analysis of the excitation spectrum of 1-phenylhexatriene shows that the spectrum contains contributions from two species, the trans,trans and the trans,cis isomers, whose 2 1Ag state excitation energies differ by about 155 cm-1. The lifetimes of 2 1Ag zero-point levels and, in particular, the activity of the C–C and C=C stretch vibrations are markedly different for the two isomers. From these results we obtain a picture of the influence that the phenyl group has on such aspects of the electronic structure of the 2 1Ag state of hexatriene as the effective conjugation length, the symmetry properties, and the fluorescence quantum yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]