Amide derivatives of DMABN: A new class of dual fluorescent compounds

Derivatives of DMABN are described, where the cyano group is replaced by an amide function with different acceptor strengths. This leads to a consistent variation of the dual fluorescence observed, describable within the established TICT model. Time resolved experiments give evidence of an additional complication with respect to DMABN due to the low-lying n pi* state of the amides which induces a fluorescence quenching channel. The presence of various conformers leads to the observed nonexponential fluorescence decay traces.