Electric field effects on the electronically excited states have been investigated for two subphthalocyanines, F-SubPc and T-SubPc, which have the electron-withdrawing and electron-donating substituents, respectively. In contrast with T-SubPc, the directions of the electric dipole moment in the excited states S-1 and S-2 of F-SubPc are found to be very different from that in the ground state S-0. The S-1 and S-2 states of T-SubPc show a prominent charge-transfer character, suggesting that T-SubPc is a suitable candidate as the dye in photovoltaic cells. Electrophotoluminescence spectra suggest that the intersystem crossing from S-1 to T-1 is enhanced by electric fields. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.