Gas-Phase Quenching of Excitations as a Probe of Dynamics in Porous Silicas

Abstract

The quenching of an electronically excited adsorbed molecule by gas-phase quenchers within the pore network of several porous silicas has been studied. It is proposed that the early-time quenching rate should scale with the mean pore size, ${R}_{p}$, for gas pressures in the Knudsen regime. We have experimentally observed such scaling in what we believe is the first study of these quenching reactions in a homologous series of morphologically similar porous silicas.