Precision chemistry offers temporal and spatial control of reaction and requires active photo reagents. In this dissertation, the excited state dynamics of photo reagents is discussed. This is part of a collaboration that included synthesis, theory, and spectroscopic characterization with the goal of developing more active super photobases. The rotational dynamics study revealed significantly slower rotational diffusion of FR0-HSB+* than FR0-SB*. The microscopic solvent interactions play a crucial role in the excited state proton transfer. The spatial resolution can be improved from one-photon excitation (OPE) by utilizing two-photon excitation (TPE). The spectroscopy of FR0-SB following TPE revealed higher reactivity in comparison to OPE. The quantum mechanical aspects of two-photon excitation were examined to demonstrate that the dipolar pathway plays an important role in these transitions even though it is far from resonance. Finally, the efforts to stabilize the higher excited states of cyanine dyes, with the goal of harnessing the energy of photons to achieve greater reactivity, have been described. Using this as inspiration, the S2 spectroscopy of a similar cyanine dye has been used to monitor the binding of the dye with human serum albumin protein.
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