Effect of Leaving Centrosymmetric Character on Spectral Properties in Mono-, Bi-, and Triphotonic Absorption Spectroscopies

Numerical simulations of the absorption bands of photoswitch E - o -tetrafluoroazobenzene in DMSO solution under one-, two-, and three-photon absorption conditions combined with the analysis of the behavior of transition probability under distortion of planarity reveal many similarities between the mono- and triphoton spectroscopic behaviors with a two-photon spectrum being set apart. The position of the absorption peak for the studied nπ* and ππ* transitions appears shifted to lower energies (longer wavelengths) than the conventional estimate based on vertical excitation from the ground-state potential energy minimum.