- published: 06 Feb 2016
- views: 898
A chromophore is the part of a molecule responsible for its color. The color arises when a molecule absorbs certain wavelengths of visible light and transmits or reflects others. The chromophore is a region in the molecule where the energy difference between two different molecular orbitals falls within the range of the visible spectrum. Visible light that hits the chromophore can thus be absorbed by exciting an electron from its ground state into an excited state.
In biological molecules that serve to capture or detect light energy, the chromophore is the moiety that causes a conformational change of the molecule when hit by light.
In the conjugated chromophores, the electrons jump between energy levels that are extended pi orbitals, created by a series of alternating single and double bonds, often in aromatic systems. Common examples include retinal (used in the eye to detect light), various food colorings, fabric dyes (azo compounds), pH indicators, lycopene, β-carotene, and anthocyanins. Various factors in a chromophore's structure go into determining at what wavelength region in a spectrum the chromophore will absorb. Lengthening or extending a conjugated system with more unsaturated (multiple) bonds in a molecule will tend to shift absorption to longer wavelengths. Woodward-Fieser rules can be used to approximate ultraviolet-visible maximum absorption wavelength in organic compounds with conjugated pi-bond systems.
words and music by Arlo Guthrie
There's a tavern up on the roadside
I must be coming into town
The moon must be in Aries
Because the truck ain't slowing down
Pulled back on the throttle
I've been doing that all day
Looking ahead for a right-hand turn
To carry me away
There's times for understanding
It don't seem like one of those
The times are too demanding
When you're hanging by your nose
So why don't you just get out of here
And leave me here to pray
That one of these mornings the sun's going to rise
And carry me away
CHORUS:
Carry me over the highway
Carry me over the sky
Carry me over the lonliness
That I'm feeling here tonight
You know I'm feeling just like a riptide
And I'm feeling a little scared
A twisted maze of old highways
Nobody has repaired
It ain't nothing that can't be handled
Like an actor in a play
Who becomes enraged, jumps from the stage
And gets a little carried away
Now all of your highways
Don't mean much to me no more
I've been on all of your highway roads
Of that you can be sure
But I still get lost on all of them roads
I can't seems to find my way
I know there's one out there somewhere
To carry me away