Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
It is known that the relaxed excited state of Ru(bpy)32+ is best described as a metal to ligand charge transfer (MLCT) state having one formally reduced bipyridine and two neutral. Previous reports have suggested Malone, R. et al. J. Chem. Phys. 1991, 95, 8970 that the electron "hops" from ligand to ligand in the MLCT state with a time constant of about 50 ps in acetonitrile. However, we have done transient absorption anisotropy measurements indicating that already after one picosecond the molecule has no memory of which bipyridine was initially photoselected, which suggests an ultrafast interligand randomization of the MLCT state.
Wallin et al. (Sat,) studied this question.