Not so bright: Ion trap mass spectrometry is used in conjunction with optical excitation and detection to study the intrinsic spectroscopic properties of the fluorescein cation, monoanion, and dianion in the gas phase. The dianion, which is a fluorescence quantum yield standard in solution, does not fluoresce significantly in the absence of solvent (see picture) because electron detachment is the favored deactivation pathway in the gas phase.
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McQueen et al. (2010) studied this question.
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