Transfer of electronic excitation energy between randomly mixed dye molecules in the channels of zeolite L.

Host-guest materials containing strongly fluorescent donor and acceptor molecules have been prepared. Fine-tuning of the donor to acceptor distance in this material allows beautiful visible and quantitative observation of electronic excitation energy transfer phenomena. Oxonine and pyronine have been used as guest molecules and zeolite L as host. The dyes have been inserted by ion exchange. Stationary state and time-resolved experiments have been carried out with zeolite crystals of 300 and 700 nm size in the dye concentration range of 10(-4) mol/L up to 0.042 mol/L. The fluorescence decay of the donor and the pumping of the acceptor via energy transfer, which can be well observed, became faster with increasing loading. The behavior of the system follows requirements expected for Förster energy transfer material.