A joint experimental and theoretical study revealed the occurrence of highly efficient intramolecular charge transfer and excited state symmetry breaking in a cationic (donor–π–acceptor–π–donor)⁺ quadrupolar compound showing negative solvatochromism.

The excited state deactivation pathways of push–pull distyryl furan and benzofuran derivatives in several organic solvents were investigated in detail by using time-resolved transient absorption and fluorescence spectroscopies, with nano- and femto-second time resolution. Solvent polarity was found to play a key role in determining the efficiencies of fluorescence, intersystem crossing and internal conversion. The triplet yield gradually decreased, while the internal conversion increased upon increasing the solvent dielectric constant. However the fluorescence showed a different solvent polarity effect in the low and high solvent polarity region, with a reversal of the trend of fluorescence properties (quantum yield and lifetime). This fact points to an emitting state of a different nature (smaller and larger dipole moments) in the two cases, as also suggested by the huge fluorosolvatochromism. In fact the ultrafast spectroscopic investigation evidenced the presence of two transients characterized by peculiar spectral shapes assigned to a locally excited (LE) and a charge transfer (CT) state. In the more polar solvents the CT state was the longer lived, fluorescent one and an intramolecular charge transfer process was found to be operative and to become faster (up to ∼200–250 fs) in the higher polarity media. On the contrary, distyrylfuran, which exhibits the same molecular skeleton without the push–pull character showed a similar excited state dynamics in solvents of different polarities.