Emission, excitation and absorption spectra of alpha-carotene have been measured in solvents with different polarizabilities. It is shown that in highly-polarized solvents alpha-carotene emits weak fluorescence from the S-1(pi,pi*) state with the fluorescence origin observed at 14 800 +/- 200 cm(-1). The relative S-1/S-2 fluorescence intensity ratio tends to increase with increasing solvent polarizability or decreasing the S-1-S-2 energy separation. The obtained spectroscopic data include the Raman spectrum of alpha-carotene along with the vibrational analyses of the Raman spectrum based on the DFT calculation at the B3LYP/6-31G(d,p) level. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.