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Main Authors: Jędrak, Jakub, Angulo, Gonzalo
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.10903
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author Jędrak, Jakub
Angulo, Gonzalo
author_facet Jędrak, Jakub
Angulo, Gonzalo
contents When encountering complex fluorescence decays that deviate from exponentiality, a very appealing and powerful approach is to use lifetime (or equivalent rate constant) distributions. These are related by Laplace transform to multi-exponential functions, stretched exponentials, Becquerel's law, and others. In the case of bimolecular quenching, time-independent probability distributions of the rate constants have occasionally been used. Here we show that this mathematical formalism has a clear physical interpretation only when the fluorophore and quencher molecules are immobile, as in the solid state. However, such an interpretation is no longer possible once we consider the motion of fluorophores with respect to quenchers. Therefore, for systems in which the relative motion of fluorophores and quenchers cannot be neglected, it is not appropriate to use the time-independent continuous reaction rate or decay time distributions to describe, fit, or rationalize experimental results.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_10903
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Limitations of the rate-distribution formalism in describing luminescence quenching in the presence of diffusion
Jędrak, Jakub
Angulo, Gonzalo
Chemical Physics
When encountering complex fluorescence decays that deviate from exponentiality, a very appealing and powerful approach is to use lifetime (or equivalent rate constant) distributions. These are related by Laplace transform to multi-exponential functions, stretched exponentials, Becquerel's law, and others. In the case of bimolecular quenching, time-independent probability distributions of the rate constants have occasionally been used. Here we show that this mathematical formalism has a clear physical interpretation only when the fluorophore and quencher molecules are immobile, as in the solid state. However, such an interpretation is no longer possible once we consider the motion of fluorophores with respect to quenchers. Therefore, for systems in which the relative motion of fluorophores and quenchers cannot be neglected, it is not appropriate to use the time-independent continuous reaction rate or decay time distributions to describe, fit, or rationalize experimental results.
title Limitations of the rate-distribution formalism in describing luminescence quenching in the presence of diffusion
topic Chemical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.10903