Reassignment of ground and first excited state vibrations in phenol

The phenol molecule has been chosen to demonstrate how dispersed fluorescen ce spectroscopy can be used to assign hot bands, i.e. vibronic transitions starting from the vibrationally excited electronic ground state. The proced ure outlined in this paper provides important information on fundamental ou t-of-plane vibrations in the electronic excited S-1 state that are not obse rved in jet-cooled spectra. The results obtained lead to a new interpretati on of the most intense hot bands in the UV absorption spectrum of phenol. W e derive vibrational frequencies for the modes 10b(1), 10b(1) and 4(1) (Var sanyi's nomenclature) which are different from those given in the literatur e. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.