Chemometric analysis of femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy data: Study of the photochromism of anils

Chemometric methods are applied for the purpose of extracting relevant information from transient absorption spectroscopy data probing the photochromism of molecules from the family of salicylidene aniline. The process consists of an ultrafast excited state intramolecular proton transfer occurring from an enol form which is then followed by a cis-trans isomerization to finally reach a trans-keto photo-product. This work focuses on the potential of combining multivariate curve resolution for modeling pure profiles and two dimensional correlation spectroscopy data analysis for providing information on the dynamics of spectral features. The results obtained for one derivative of salicylidene aniline provide information regarding the number of species created after the proton transfer and characterization of their absorption spectra and their kinetics in the picosecond time scale. The spectral resolution of two cis-keto forms is proposed for the first time. It is also found that both cis-keto species are involved in the formation of the trans-keto photo-product. The main precursor of the trans-keto photo-product is the cis-keto form which has the shortest characteristic time.