Estimation of ground- and excited-state dipole moments of oxazine 1 in liquid and liquid crystalline media

The absorption and fluorescence spectra of a laser dye, oxazine-1 (OX1), in liquid and liquid crystalline media were studied at room temperature. The solvatochromic method was used to determine the ground- and excited-state dipole moments by means of Lippert-Mataga, Bakshiev, Kawski-Chamma-Viallet polarity functions. The solvent polarity has no large and regular effect on the spectral behavior of OX1, and thus it might be considered as a poor solvatochromic indicator dye. In addition, applicability of solvatochromic method for this dye in anisotropic media was investigated. On the other hand, nature and degree of the solute-solvent interactions were characterized using correlation of multi-parameter solvent polarity scales. Due to the theoretical restrictions and the dye molecular structure, deviations from the solvatochromic correlation were observed.