Theoretical study of the benzene excimer using time-dependent density functional theory

A theoretical characterization of the potential energy surfaces of the singlet benzene excimer states derived from the B2u monomer excited state has been performed using time-dependent density functional theory. The excited-state potential energy surfaces were initially characterized by computations along the parallel and perpendicular intermolecular translational coordinates. These calculations predict that the lowest excited state for parallel translation is bound with a minimum at 3.15 angstroms and with a binding energy of 0.46 eV, while the perpendicular translational coordinate was essentially found to be a repulsive state. At the calculated minimum distance, the effect of in-plane rotation, out-of-plane rotation, and slipped-parallel translation were examined. The rotational calculations predict that deviations from the D6h geometry lead to a destabilization of the excimer state; however, small angular variations in the range of 0 degrees -10 degrees are predicted to be energetically feasible. The slipped-parallel translational calculations also predict a destabilizing effect on the excimer state and were found to possess barriers to this type of dissociation in the range of 0.50-0.61 eV. When compared to experimentally determined values for the benzene excimer energetics, the calculated values were found to be in semiquantitative agreement. Overall, this study suggests that the time-dependent density functional theory method can be used to characterize the potential energy surfaces and the energetics of aromatic excimers with reasonable accuracy.     

Quantum mechanical calculation of energy dependence of OCl/OH product branching ratio and product quantum state distributions for the O(1D) + HCl reaction on all three contributing electronic state potential energy surfaces

OCl/OH product branching ratios are calculated as a function of total energy for the O( (1) D) + HCl reaction using quantum wavepacket methods. The calculations take account of reaction on all the three electronic state potential energy surfaces which correlate with both reactants and products. Our results show that reaction on the excited electronic state surfaces has a large effect on the branching ratio at higher energies and that these surfaces must therefore be fully taken into account. The calculations use the potential energy surfaces of Nanbu and co-workers. Product vibrational and rotational quantum state distributions are also calculated as a function of energy for both product channels. Inclusion of the excited electronic state potential energy surfaces improves the agreement of the predicted product vibrational quantum state distributions with experiment for the OH product channel. For OCl agreement between theory and experiment is retained for the vibrational quantum state distributions when the excited electronic state potential energy surfaces are included in the analysis. For the rotational state distributions good agreement between theory and experiment is maintained for energies at which experimental results are available. At higher energies, above 0.7 eV of total energy, the OCl rotational state distributions predicted using all three electronic state potential energy surfaces shift to markedly smaller rotational quantum numbers.     

Real-time, local basis-set implementation of time-dependent density functional theory for excited state dynamics simulations

We present a method suitable for large-scale accurate simulations of excited state dynamics within the framework of time-dependent density functional theory (DFT). This is achieved by employing a local atomic basis-set representation and real-time propagation of excited state wave functions. We implement the method within SIESTA, a standard ground-state DFT package with local atomic basis, and demonstrate its potential for realistic and accurate excited state dynamics simulations using small and medium-sized molecules as examples (H(2), CO, O(3), and indolequinone). The method can be readily applied to problems involving nanostructures and large biomolecules.     

Local effective potential theory: nonuniqueness of potential and wave function

In local effective potential energy theories such as the Hohenberg-Kohn-Sham density functional theory (HKS-DFT) and quantal density functional theory (Q-DFT), electronic systems in their ground or excited states are mapped to model systems of noninteracting fermions with equivalent density. From these models, the equivalent total energy and ionization potential are also obtained. This paper concerns (i) the nonuniqueness of the local effective potential energy function of the model system in the mapping from a nondegenerate ground state, (ii) the nonuniqueness of the local effective potential energy function in the mapping from a nondegenerate excited state, and (iii) in the mapping to a model system in an excited state, the nonuniqueness of the model system wave function. According to nondegenerate ground state HKS-DFT, there exists only one local effective potential energy function, obtained as the functional derivative of the unique ground state energy functional, that can generate the ground state density. Since the theorems of ground state HKS-DFT cannot be generalized to nondegenerate excited states, there could exist different local potential energy functions that generate the excited state density. The constrained-search version of HKS-DFT selects one of these functions as the functional derivative of a bidensity energy functional. In this paper, the authors show via Q-DFT that there exist an infinite number of local potential energy functions that can generate both the nondegenerate ground and excited state densities of an interacting system. This is accomplished by constructing model systems in configurations different from those of the interacting system. Further, they prove that the difference between the various potential energy functions lies solely in their correlation-kinetic contributions. The component of these functions due to the Pauli exclusion principle and Coulomb repulsion remains the same. The existence of the different potential energy functions as viewed from the perspective of Q-DFT reaffirms that there can be no equivalent to the ground state HKS-DFT theorems for excited states. Additionally, the lack of such theorems for excited states is attributable to correlation-kinetic effects. Finally, they show that in the mapping to a model system in an excited state, there is a nonuniqueness of the model system wave function. Different wave functions lead to the same density, each thereby satisfying the sole requirement of reproducing the interacting system density. Examples of the nonuniqueness of the potential energy functions for the mapping from both ground and excited states and the nonuniqueness of the wave function are provided for the exactly solvable Hooke's atom. The work of others is also discussed.     

On the photophysics of artificial blue-light photoreceptors: an ab initio study on a flavin-based dye dyad at the level of coupled-cluster response theory

The photophysical behavior of a phenothiazine-phenyl-isoalloxazine dye dyad, a model system for blue-light photoreceptors functioning on the basis of photoinduced electron transfer, was investigated by employing a combination of time-dependent density functional and coupled-cluster response theory. A conical intersection between a "bright" locally excited and a "dark" charge-transfer state was found in the low-energy region of the corresponding potential energy surfaces. We propose that, for the solvated dyad, this conical intersection is responsible for the experimentally observed fast fluorescence quenching in that system.     

Theoretical investigation of excited states of C(3)

In this work, we present ab initio calculations for the potential energy surfaces of C(3) in different electronic configurations, including the singlet ground state [X (1)Sigma(g) (+),((1)A(1))], the triplet ground state [a (3)Pi(u),((3)B(1), (3)A(1))], and some higher excited states. The geometries studied include triangular shapes with two identical bond lengths, but different bond angles between them. For the singlet and triplet ground states in the linear geometry, the total energies resulting from the mixed density functional--Hartree-Fock and quadratic configuration interaction methods reproduce the experimental values, i.e., the triplet occurs 2.1 eV above the singlet. In the geometry of an equilateral triangle, we find a low-lying triplet state with an energy of only 0.8 eV above the energy of the singlet in the linear configuration, so that the triangular geometry yields the lowest excited state of C(3). For the higher excited states up to about 8 eV above the ground state, we apply time-dependent density functional theory. Even though the systematic error produced by this approach is of the order of 0.4 eV, the results give different prospective to insight into the potential energy landscape for higher excitation energies.     

气相水杨酸激发态分子内质子转移特性分析

采用密度泛函理论(DFT)和含时密度泛函理论(TD-DFT)研究了气相水杨酸(SA)分子的激发态氢键动力学过程。通过对水杨酸分子基态和激发态结构的优化,以及对其稳态吸收和发射光谱特性、前线分子轨道、红外振动光谱和势能曲线的计算分析,阐明水杨酸分子内质子转移可在激发态下自发地发生,导致其激发态可存在烯醇式和酮式两种异构体结构,并揭示了这种质子转移源于分子内电荷转移的激发态氢键的加强机制。     

Theoretical study of the ground and excited states of 7-methyl guanine and 9-methyl guanine: comparison with experiment

The keto-enol tautomerization of 7-methyl-guanine and 9-methyl-guanine in the excited state was investigated using the time-dependent DFT (TDDFT) method. For both species, the potential energy surfaces of the ground state and two lowest singlet excited states (due to pi-->pi* and n-->pi* transitions) have been investigated and their features discussed in terms of consequences on the excited state dynamics. The findings suggest that, for both species, the state due to the n-->pi* transition, suspected to be an intermediate in the excited state deactivation, exhibits two minima with the second minimum characterized by an elongated N1-H distance. This structure, intermediate between enol and keto tautomers, might play a role in the excited state relaxation. The existence of this second well, however, is observed in both 7- and 9-methyl-guanine, which suggests that it cannot account alone for the different photophysical behavior of these species.     

Analytical excited state forces for the time-dependent density-functional tight-binding method

An analytical formulation for the geometrical derivatives of excitation energies within the time-dependent density-functional tight-binding (TD-DFTB) method is presented. The derivation is based on the auxiliary functional approach proposed in [Furche and Ahlrichs, J Chem Phys 2002, 117, 7433]. To validate the quality of the potential energy surfaces provided by the method, adiabatic excitation energies, excited state geometries, and harmonic vibrational frequencies were calculated for a test set of molecules in excited states of different symmetry and multiplicity. According to the results, the TD-DFTB scheme surpasses the performance of configuration interaction singles and the random phase approximation but has a lower quality than ab initio time-dependent density-functional theory. As a consequence of the special form of the approximations made in TD-DFTB, the scaling exponent of the method can be reduced to three, similar to the ground state. The low scaling prefactor and the satisfactory accuracy of the method makes TD-DFTB especially suitable for molecular dynamics simulations of dozens of atoms as well as for the computation of luminescence spectra of systems containing hundreds of atoms.     

Hückel－Hubbard参数化法及氮叶立德［2，3］和氢［1，3］σ键迁移的研究

本文建议一种Ｈüｃｋｅｌ－Ｈｕｂｂａｒｄ参数化法，并用Ｈüｃｋｅｌ－Ｈｕｂｂａｒｄ理论首次计算了氮叶立德［２，３］和氢［１，３］σ键迁移反应的基态和低激发态势能面，根据计算得到的势能面，对相应的基态和激发态反应途径进行了讨论，得到有价值的结论。     

Study of acyl group migration by femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy and computational chemistry

The primary photophysical and photochemical processes in the photochemistry of 1-acetoxy-2-methoxyanthraquinone (1a) were studied using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. Excitation of 1a at 270 nm results in the population of a set of highly excited singlet states. Internal conversion to the lowest singlet npi* excited state, followed by an intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution (IVR) process, proceeds with a time constant of 150 +/- 90 fs. The 1npi* excited state undergoes very fast intersystem crossing (ISC, 11 +/- 1 ps) to form the lowest triplet pipi* excited state which contains excess vibrational energy. The vibrational cooling occurs somewhat faster (4 +/- 1 ps) than ISC. The primary photochemical process, migration of acetoxy group, proceeds on the triplet potential energy surface with a time constant of 220 +/- 30 ps. The transient absorption spectra of the lowest singlet and triplet excited states of 1a, as well as the triplet excited state of the product, 9-acetoxy-2-methoxy-1,10-anthraquinone (2a), were detected. The assignments of the transient absorption spectra were supported by time-dependent DFT calculations of the UV-vis spectra of the proposed intermediates. All of the stationary points for acyl group migration on the triplet and ground state singlet potential energy surfaces were localized, and the influence of the acyl group substitution on the rate constants of the photochemical and thermal processes was analyzed.     

Theoretical study of the photoinduced transfer among the ground state and two metastable states in [Fe(CN)5NO]2-

Ab initio calculations were performed to investigate photoinduced transfers among the ground state (GS) and two metastable states (MS1 and MS2) of [Fe(CN)5NO]2-. We obtained the global potential energy surface of the electronic ground state by a scheme of multireference singly and doubly excited configuration interaction followed by a Davidson-type quadruple correction (MRSDCI+Q). The ground state surface has three local minima corresponding to GS, MS1, and MS2. The character of bond between Fe and the nitrosyl group are discussed. We carried out calculations of the lower five electronic excited states by MRSDCI+Q. The main configurations of these lower five excited states were represented by the dFe-->pi*NO transition accompanied by considerable back-donation. The potential energy surfaces of the six states, including the ground state, were obtained by state averaged complete active space self-consistent field calculations. The surfaces have several conical intersections and avoided crossings in the reaction pathway. The photoinduced transfers among GS, MS1, and MS2 are caused by the nonadiabatic effect near these crossings.     

Photodesorption of diatomic molecules from surfaces: A theoretical approach based on first principles

Photodesorption of small molecules from surfaces is one of the most fundamental processes in surface photochemistry. Despite its apparent simplicity, a microscopic understanding beyond a qualitative picture still poses a true challenge for theory. While the dynamics of nuclear motion can be treated on various levels of sophistication, all approaches suffer from the lack of sufficiently accurate potential energy surfaces, in particular for electronically excited states involved in the desorption scenario.In the last decade, a systematic and accurate methodology has been developed which allows a reliable calculation of accurate ground and excited state potential energy surfaces (PES) for different adsorbate–substrate systems. These potential energy surfaces serve as a prerequisite for subsequent quantum dynamical wave packet calculations, which allow for a direct simulation of experimentally observable quantities such as quantum state resolved velocity distributions.In the first part of this review, we will focus on scalar properties of desorbing diatomic molecules from insulating surfaces, where we also present a recently developed strategy of obtaining accurate potential energy surfaces using quantum chemical approaches. In general, diatomic molecules on large band gap materials such as oxide surfaces are studied which allows the use of sufficiently large cluster models and accurate ab initio methods beyond density functional theory (DFT). In the second part, we will focus on the vectorial aspects of the dynamics of nuclear motion and present simulations of experimentally accessible observables such as velocity distributions, Doppler profiles and alignment parameters. For each system, the microscopic mechanism of photodesorption is elucidated. We will demonstrate that the driving force of surface photochemistry is strongly dependent on details of the electronic structure of the adsorbate–substrate systems. This implies that great caution is advisable if experimental results are interpreted using empirical or semi-empirical models.     

Excited-state potential surfaces of ruthenium nitrosyl complexes: conical intersections and the Jahn-Teller effect

The Jahn-Teller effect in excited states of nitrosyl complexes was analyzed in terms of the density functional theory at the B3LYP level. This effect was shown to play a role in transitions between metastable isomers and their photoactivated relaxation to the ground state. In the compounds under study, the Jahn-Teller effect can be interpreted as the Renner-Teller effect. The characteristics of the Jahn-Teller potential energy surfaces were determined.     

Assessment of TD-DFT- and TD-HF-based approaches for the prediction of exciton coupling parameters, potential energy curves, and electronic characters of electronically excited aggregates

The reliability of linear response approaches such as time-dependent Hartree-Fock (TD-HF) and time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) for the prediction of the excited state properties of 3,4;9,10-tetracarboxylic-perylene-bisimide (PBI) aggregates is investigated. A dimer model of PBI is investigated as a function of a torsional motion of the monomers, which was shown before to be an important intermolecular coordinate in these aggregates. The potential energy curves of the ground state and the two energetically lowest neutral excited and charge-transfer (CT) states were obtained with the spin-component scaling modification of the approximate coupled-cluster singles-and-doubles (SCS-CC2) method as a benchmark for dispersion corrected TD-HF and a range of TD-DFT approaches. The highly accurate SCS-CC2 results are used to assess the other, computationally less demanding methods. TD-HF predicts similar potential energy curves and transition dipole moments as SCS-CC2, as well as the correct order of neutral and CT states. This supports an exciton trapping mechanism, which was found on the basis of TD-HF data. However, the investigated TD-DFT methods provide generally the opposite character for the excited states. As a consequence, these TD-DFT results have unacceptably large errors for optical properties of these dye aggregates.     

Pigment Yellow 101: A showcase for photo-initiated processes in medium-sized molecules

Pigment Yellow 101 (P.Y.101) is a fluorescent yellow pigment which exhibits a surprisingly rich photochemistry of several competing reaction pathways as revealed by recent time-resolved femtosecond experiments. Our elaborate quantum chemical investigations employing density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT (TDDFT) show that the observed fluorescence competes with excited state intramolecular proton transfer and trans–cis isomerization processes. Moreover, the experimentally observed spectral features of the complicated excited state dynamics can be assigned to stable trans-diol, trans-keto and cis-diol, cis-keto isomers on the ground and excited state surfaces. Still, due to its molecular size P.Y.101 poses a challenge to electronic structure theory and many problems occur in particular with respect to the excited state calculations. Thus, P.Y.101 serves also as an educative example for which TDDFT yields a reasonable vertical electronic spectrum, but fails in the prediction of excited state structures, when standard GGA or hybrid functionals with low fractions of Hartree–Fock exchange are employed. This failure is attributed to the charge-transfer failure of TDDFT.     

Electronic transitions involved in the absorption spectrum and dual luminescence of tetranuclear cubane [Cu4I4(pyridine)4] cluster: a density functional theory/time-dependent density functional theory investigation

We present a combined density functional theory (DFT)/time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) study of the geometry, electronic structure, and absorption and emission properties of the tetranuclear "cubane" Cu4I4py4 (py = pyridine) system. The geometry of the singlet ground state and of the two lowest triplet states of the title complex were optimized, followed by TDDFT excited-state calculations. This procedure allowed us to characterize the nature of the excited states involved in the absorption spectrum and those responsible for the dual emission bands observed for this complex. In agreement with earlier experimental proposals, we find that while in absorption the halide-to-pyridine charge-transfer excited state (XLCT*) has a lower energy than the cluster-centered excited state (CC*), a strong geometrical relaxation on the triplet cluster-centered state surface leads to a reverse order of the excited states in emission.     

Electronic and quantum dynamical insight into the ultrafast proton transfer of 1-hydroxy-2-acetonaphthone

The ultrafast proton-transfer dynamics of 1-hydroxy-2-acetonaphthone has been theoretically analyzed in the ground and first singlet excited electronic states by density functional theory calculations and quantum dynamics. The potential energies obtained in the ground electronic state reveal that the proton-transfer process does not lead to a stable keto tautomer unless the transfer of the hydrogen from the enol form is accompanied by an internal rotation of the newly formed O-H bond. Calculations in the first singlet excited electronic state point to a very low barrier for the formation of the keto tautomer. The analysis of the calculated frequencies of the two tautomers in the excited state unveils a coupling of the skeletal motions (low frequency modes) with the proton-transfer process, as it has been stated from time-resolved experiments. The electronic energies obtained by the time-dependent density functional theory formalism have been fitted to a monodimensional potential energy surface in order to perform an exact quantum dynamics study of the process. Our results show that the proton-transfer process is completed within 25.5 fs, in remarkable good agreement with experiments.