The Triplet State in Pyrene

Abstract Both emission and excitation spectra of phosphorescence and delayed fluorescence of pyrene single crystals have been investigated between 2 K and 300 K using cw dye laser excitation. The experiments prove that the lowest triplet state is excitonic in nature in the high and low temperature crystalline phases. No evidence for triplet excimer emission could be found. The so-called regular broad band triplet excimer emission was spectrally resolved at low temperature and identified as trap emission. On the basis of polarized high resolution excitation spectra of undoped normal and perdeuterated pyrene (supplemented by Zeeman spectra at helium temperature) and the concentration dependent phosphorescence excitation spectra of isotopically mixed crystals the triplet state symmetry and the excitonic Davydov splitting of the low temperature crystalline phase was determined. The resonance pair interaction between the dimer molecules was found to be an order of magnitude smaller than predicted from calculations reported so far.