Energy acceptors, emission quantum yield

The trivial mechanism is not very efficient given the statistical probability of direct emission and reabsorption. However, the efficiency of this kind of energy transfer can be maximized with high emission quantum yield of the donor, high concentration and high extinction coefficient of the acceptor, and strong overlap between the emission and absorption spectra. In most systems, the trivial process does not contribute significantly compared to the other two mechanisms. 

FRET is a nonradiative process that is, the transfer takes place without the emission or absorption of a photon. And yet, the transition dipoles, which are central to the mechanism by which the ground and excited states are coupled, are conspicuously present in the expression for the rate of transfer. For instance, the fluorescence quantum yield and fluorescence spectrum of the donor and the absorption spectrum of the acceptor are part of the overlap integral in the Forster rate expression, Eq. (1.2). These spectroscopic transitions are usually associated with the emission and absorption of a photon. These dipole matrix elements in the quantum mechanical expression for the rate of FRET are the same matrix elements as found for the interaction of a propagating EM field with the chromophores. However, the origin of the EM perturbation driving the energy transfer and the spectroscopic transitions are quite different. The source of this interaction term... 

Thus, E is defined as the product of the energy transfer rate constant, ku and the fluorescence lifetime, xDA, of the donor experiencing quenching by the acceptor. The other quantities in Eq. (12.1) are the DA separation, rDA the DA overlap integral, / the refractive index of the transfer medium, n the orientation factor, k2 the normalized (to unit area) donor emission spectrum, (2) the acceptor extinction coefficient, eA(k) and the unperturbed donor quantum yield, QD. 

Energy transfer [3,12] between molecules has also been used in the design of optical sensors. Here, an excited molecule (donor) can transfer its electronic energy to another species (acceptor). This process occurs without the appearance of a photon and results from dipole-dipole interaction between the donor-acceptor molecules. The rate depends on the fluorescence quantum yield of the donor, the overlap of the emission spectra of the donor with the absorption of the spectrum of the acceptor, and their relative orientation and distance. It is the overlap of... 

The antenna effect is illustrated in Fig. 6. The necessary conditions for its efficient implementation are the high molar absorbance of antenna dyes, efficient energy transfer to acceptor dye, and high quantum yield of emission of the latter. At the same time, while evaluating the highly increased apparent brightness of the... 

Embedding of pinacyanol in a three-dimensional polyphenylene dendrimer results in a red-shift of absorption (from 600 to 620 nm) and emission (from 625 to 648 nm) maxima and in an increase of the quantum yield from 9 x KT4 for free dye in water to 1.4 x 10 2 after insertion in the dendrimeric architecture [71]. This dendrimer was used to develop two FRET systems utilizing cyanine dyes as the donor (DTCI) and the acceptor (pinacyanol and 26a) molecules [72], The FRET system allows the time-resolved detection, where energy transfer can be observed at the single-molecule level. 

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