
Intersystem crossing (ISC), a radiationless transition between electronic states of different spin multiplicities, is ubiquitous in molecular photochemistry 1. Molecules have electronic states characterized by a total electronic-spin quantum number S, with the spin multiplicity given by 2 S + 1.
What is intersystem crossing (ISC)?
Intersystem crossing (ISC) is a radiationless process involving a transition between the two electronic states with different states spin multiplicity.
What is the relationship between intersystem crossing and phosphorescence?
In addition, the presence of paramagnetic species in solution enhances intersystem crossing. The radiative decay from an excited triplet state back to a singlet state is known as phosphorescence. Since a transition in spin multiplicity occurs, phosphorescence is a manifestation of intersystem crossing.
Is intersystem crossing allowed in spin polarization?
This intersystem crossing is, therefore, allowed, and it is the main contributor to the creation of spin polarization. The large intersystem crossing rate of γ1 = 0.55 γ indicates that the 1 A 1 must lie close in energy to 3 E, probably, within one phonon energy, but its exact location has not yet been established.
Why is intersystem crossing most common in heavy atoms?
As the spin/orbital interactions in such molecules are substantial and a change in spin is thus more favourable, intersystem crossing is most common in heavy-atom molecules (e.g. those containing iodine or bromine). This process is called " spin-orbit coupling ".

What is intersystem crossing in photochemistry?
Intersystem crossing (ISC) is an isoenergetic radiationless process involving a transition between the two electronic states with different spin multiplicity.
What causes intersystem crossing?
Intersystem crossing between triplets and singlets arise from spin-orbit interaction. The highest rates are between adjacent states mixed by spin-orbit interaction, and symmetric vibrations absorb the mismatch in energy.
Why intersystem crossing is important?
Intersystem crossing plays an important role in photochemistry. It is understood to be efficient when heavy atoms are present due to strong spin–orbit coupling, or when strongly bound long-lived complexes are formed that increase the chance of finding the singlet–triplet intersection seam.
What is the difference between internal and intersystem crossing?
Internal conversion is the radiationless transition between energy states of the same spin state (compare with fluorescence-a radiative process). Intersystem crossing is a radiationless transition between different spin states (compare to phosphorescence).
What is singlet and triplet?
A singlet state refers to a system in which all the electrons are paired. Whereas, the triplet state of a system describes that the system has two unpaired electrons.
Why is it called triplet state?
A triplet state is an electronic state in which two electrons in different molecular orbitals have parallel spins, as shown in Fig. 4.35. The name “triplet” reflects that there are three triplet sublevels as discussed earlier (see Section 4.15.
Why intersystem crossing is forbidden?
Intersystem crossing is one way a system can end up in a triplet excited state. Even though this state is lower in energy than a singlet excited state, it cannot be accessed directly via electronic excitation because that would violate the spin selection rule (\Delta S=0\).
What is singlet and triplet carbene?
The carbene is called a singlet carbene when the two electrons have opposite spins, and a triplet carbene when they have parallel spins. A singlet carbene has a pair of electrons in a single orbital in its ground state, whereas a triplet carbene has two unpaired electrons in distinct orbitals.
What is reverse intersystem crossing?
The reverse intersystem crossing (RISC) is the reverse of ISC where a triplet exciton state gets changed into the singlet exciton state [12] (see Fig. 2). As the singlet exciton energy lies higher than the triplet energy, the energy difference Δ E S T has to be overcome via the thermal energy.
What is intersystem crossing in Jablonski diagram?
Intersystem Crossing This where the electron changes spin multiplicity from an excited singlet state to an excited triplet state. It is indicated by a horizontal, curved arrow from one column to another. This is the slowest process in the Jablonski diagram, several orders of magnitude slower than fluorescence.
What is ISC in Jablonski diagram?
A third type is intersystem crossing (ISC); this is a transition to a state with a different spin multiplicity. In molecules with large spin-orbit coupling, intersystem crossing is much more important than in molecules that exhibit only small spin-orbit coupling.
How do you make a Jablonski diagram?
2:408:31How to draw Jablonski diagrams - Real Chemistry - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipVery first step in our Jablonski diagram. Light comes in some photon it's usually a UV or visibleMoreVery first step in our Jablonski diagram. Light comes in some photon it's usually a UV or visible photon. And it's going to be absorbed then it's going to take one of our paired electrons.
What is inter system crossing?
Inter-System Crossing (ISC) is a dynamical process that arises from spin-orbit coupling between electronic states belonging to different electron spin multiplicities. Typically, a vibrational level of an excited singlet state is spin-orbit coupled to the dense manifold of vibrational levels of a lower-lying triplet state, or a triplet vibrational level is coupled to the dense manifold of vibrational levels of a lower-lying singlet state (usually the electronic ground state).
What is spin non-conserving intersystem crossing?
Spin non-conserving intersystem-crossing (ISC) transitions occur from the excited triplet state of NV − 3 E to the higher singlet state 1 A 1 and from the lower singlet state 1 E to the ground triplet state 3 A 2 ( Goldman et al., 2015; Thiering and Gali, 2018 ). Spin-selectivity of these transitions enables the optical polarization of the spin into the m s = 0 sublevel of NV − ground triplet state, as well as the optical and photoelectric readout of NV − spin. Electrons in the m s = ± 1 spin sublevels of NV − triplet excited state 3 E have a probability of approximately one third to decay non-radiatively to the higher singlet level 1 A 1 ( Doherty et al., 2013 ), while this probability is only a few percent in the case of electrons with an m s = 0 spin state ( Goldman et al., 2015; Robledo et al., 2011; Tetienne et al., 2012 ). From 1 A 1 (relaxation time < 100 ps at room temperature ( Ulbricht and Loh, 2018 )), electrons rapidly decay to the singlet metastable state 1 E. They remain in this state for an average time of approximately 200 ns at room temperature ( Acosta et al., 2010; Robledo et al., 2011 ), before undergoing a transition to the triplet ground state 3 A 2 (see Fig. 2 B). This non-radiative decay path competes with radiative transitions between the triplet excited and ground states. The m s = 0 state thus appears brighter in photoluminescence than the m s = ± 1 states. This spin-dependence of the intensity of the photoluminescent light emitted by NV − under illumination is used to optically determine NV − spin state (for example, in ODMR).
How do triplets and singlets cross?
Intersystem crossing between triplets and singlets arise from spin-orbit interaction. The highest rates are between adjacent states mixed by spin-orbit interaction, and symmetric vibrations absorb the mismatch in energy. The symmetry of the spin-orbit states are given in Figure 10.2, and the only intersystem crossing allowed by the above rule is that between the A 1 components of 3 E and 1 A 1. This intersystem crossing is, therefore, allowed, and it is the main contributor to the creation of spin polarization. The large intersystem crossing rate of γ1 = 0.55 γ indicates that the 1 A 1 must lie close in energy to 3 E, probably, within one phonon energy, but its exact location has not yet been established. In the ground state, there is an E spin-orbit component within 3 A 2 and intersystem crossing from 1 E must be considered. However, it is found that there is no spin-orbit mixing with the 1 E, and so there is no decay to the ground state via symmetric vibrations. The result is that population can decay to the 1 E level, but no further with conventional relaxation mechanisms. The great difficulty with the spin polarizing optical cycle of the NV − center has been in understanding how the system does decay from the 1 E level to the ground state. The answer is that the decay involves degenerate E-vibrations, and it is found that the relaxation can be to either of the ground state spin levels [49]. This is consistent with observation as the earlier parameters indicate there is not a strong preference for either spin projection. The spin polarization is more reliant on the above relaxation out of 3 E favoring transfer out of mS = 1. Other decay can be enabled by the coupling of E-vibrations, and these account for the weaker decay channels. In Figure 10.2, all of the nonradiative decay channels involving E-vibrations are indicated in green.
Who proposed the transfer process of lanthanoid complexes?
Theoretical modeling of the intricate transfer process in lanthanoid (III) complexes with organic ligands has been proposed by G. F. de Sá et al. 49 and this model is briefly outlined below.
What is an ISC?
Intersystem crossing (ISC) allows conversion to the long-lived triplet excited state (T1) and, from here, two different mechanisms of action are possible.

Overview
Intersystem crossing (ISC) is an isoenergetic radiationless process involving a transition between the two electronic states with different states spin multiplicity.
Excited Singlet and Triplet States
When an electron in a molecule with a singlet ground state is excited (via absorption of radiation) to a higher energy level, either an excited singlet state or an excited triplet state will form. Singlet state is a molecular electronic state such that all electron spins are paired. That is, the spin of the excited electron is still paired with the ground state electron (a pair of electrons in the same energy lev…
Metal Complexes
Once a metal complex undergoes metal-to-ligand charge transfer, the system can undergo intersystem crossing, which, in conjunction with the tunability of MLCT excitation energies, produces a long-lived intermediate whose energy can be adjusted by altering the ligands used in the complex. Another species can then react with the long-lived excited state via oxidation or reduction, thereby initiating a redox pathway via tunable photoexcitation. Complexes containing h…
Applications
Fluorescence microscopy relies upon fluorescent compounds, or fluorophores, in order to image biological systems. Since fluorescence and phosphorescence are competitive methods of relaxation, a fluorophore that undergoes intersystem crossing to the triplet excited state no longer fluoresces and instead remains in the triplet excited state, which has a relatively long lifetime, before phosphorescing and relaxing back to the singlet ground state so that it may continue to u…
History
In 1933, Aleksander Jabłoński published his conclusion that the extended lifetime of phosphorescence was due to a metastable excited state at an energy lower than the state first achieved upon excitation. Based upon this research, Gilbert Lewis and coworkers, during their investigation of organic molecule luminescence in the 1940s, concluded that this metastable energy state corresponded to the triplet electron configuration. The triplet state was confirmed …
See also
• Internal conversion (chemistry)
• Michael Kasha
• Population inversion
• Vibrational energy relaxation