The dynamics of populating and depopulating the phosphorescent triplet state as studied by microwave induced delayed phosphorescence

It is known that at low temperatures relaxation between the spin components of a phosphorescent triplet state of an organic molecule may become very slow as compared to their individual rates of decay. Spectacular changes in the intensity emitted can then be induced by suddenly sweeping a microwave field through one of the zero-field resonances during phosphorescence decay. These microwave induced signals arise because molecules are transferred from a populated non-radiative level to an empty radiative one. In this paper a system of experiments based on this phenomenon is presented which enables one to solve the dynamics of populating and depopulating the individual levels of the phosphorescent state. As a demonstration results of experiments on the aza-naphthalenes quinoline and quinoxaline are given.