Following the addition of DMAc to the toluene solution (1.4%-vol. DMAc) of 18 the average distance between the fluorophores corresponds to the Förster radius of the green/red pair. Upon formation of the close ion pair the intensity of the 648 nm signal increases 21-fold while the green signal decreases by a factor of 6.6. The close ion pair can be disconnected by addition of a ligand to gold, such as phenyl acetylene. At c= 1.0•10 -6 mol/L of the salt in toluene approx. 10 4 equivalents of phenyl acetylene are needed to fully separate the ion pair. The method presented here is fairly general and allows the investigation of ion pairing in numerous different settings. Understanding ion pairing is highly relevant for catalytic olefin polymerization using cationic transition metal complexes or for cationic gold catalyzed hydration and alkoxylation of alkynes and the methodology presented here should be highly useful. Evaluation of the blue-green dyad. Prior the construction of the triad, we tested, whether it is possible to synthesize NHC-gold complexes incorporating a blue Bodipy. This may not be straightforward, since the NH-unit attached directly to the Bodipy-core is slightly acidic and may react with the base needed for the formation of the carbene from the imidazolium salt. Nonetheless, a blue imidazolium salt 19