Investigation of variation in fluorescence intensity from rhodamine 6G Dye

TL;DR

This study investigates how fluorescence intensity from rhodamine 6G dye varies under continuous excitation, revealing initial enhancement, subsequent decay, and a steady shift in emission wavelength, with insights into photo bleaching mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides experimental and simulation insights into the fluorescence variation and photo bleaching processes of rhodamine 6G dye under low-power excitation.

Findings

Fluorescence intensity initially rises then decays over time.

Fluorescence peak shifts from 562 nm to 543 nm during observation.

Photo bleaching occurs across all energy states of the dye.

Abstract

Variation in fluorescence intensity from rhodamine 6G dye was investigated. A small volume of dye solution was optically excited with a 0.4 mW, 532nm wavelength cw-laser light. The dye was dissolved in methanol and glycerol for a concentration of 10mg/ml. With the optical excitation, initially the fluorescence intensity was observed to rise, and then it decayed, along with a steady shift of fluorescence peak from 562 nm to 543 nm. The observation of initial enhancement in fluorescence from start to 7 minutes of excitation, can partly be due to the low excitation power, therefore slower rate of change of fluorescence intensity with time. Simulation studies indicate that the photo bleaching was taking place from all the energy states of the dye molecules, which is an extension of the concept that the photo bleaching takes place at the excited triplet state whereas the fluorescence takes place due to transition between ground and excited singlet states. A steady shift in fluorescence peak position, from 562 nm to 543 nm, was observed during the fluorescence life of the dye, at a rate of 0.0113 nm/s during fluorescence enhancement and 0.026 nm/s during photo bleaching.