The role of electronically excited states in recombination reactions

Methods are described for including the participation of bound electronically excited states in calculations on radical recombination reactions. These methods are illustrated by applying them to the reactions For O₂, accurate ab initio potentials are used in calculations which show that the electronic degeneracy and long-range part of the potential are likely to be crucial in determining the contribution of a given electronic state to the overall reaction, as long as the state is not so weakly bound that it dissociates thermally before being electronically quenched. Weak collision effects are allowed for using a Monte Carlo technique and an assumed exponential form for the distribution of energies transferred in collisions with a third body. For larger systems it is evident that the role of bound excited states in the low-pressure regime falls rapidly as the size of the system increases. As the high-pressure limit is approached, however, the contribution of excited states is likely to come close to that expected simply on the basis of electronic degeneracy.     

On the electronically excited states of uracil

Vertical excitation energies in uracil in the gas phase and in water solution are investigated by the equation-of-motion coupled-cluster and multireference configuration interaction methods. Basis set effects are found to be important for converged results. The analysis of electronic wave functions reveals that the lowest singlet states are predominantly of a singly excited character and are therefore well described by single-reference equation-of-motion methods augmented by a perturbative triples correction to account for dynamical correlation.Our best estimates for the vertical excitation energies for the lowest singlet n --> pi* and pi --> pi* are 5.0 +/- 0.1 eV and 5.3 +/- 0.1 eV, respectively. The solvent effects for these states are estimated to be +0.5 eV and +/- 0.1 eV, respectively. We attribute the difference between the computed vertical excitations and the maximum of the experimental absorption to strong vibronic interaction between the lowest A" and A' states leading to intensity borrowing by the forbidden transition.     

N-dealkylation of electronically excited coumarins by nitrobenzenes

When excited (monochromatically or with λ ⩾ 280 nm) in benzene solution in the presence of nitroaromatic acceptors, several 7-dialkylamino-coumarins undergo moderately efficient mono-N-dealkylation to form 7-alkylaminocoumarins, accompanied by the reduction of the nitro function in the acceptor. For 7-(N,N-diethylamino)-4-methylcoumarin (1a) a linear plot of ø_P⁻¹ versus the reciprocal of the concentration of the starting material suggests that two molecules of 1a are involved in the dealkylation of irradiated 1a by ground state 3-chloronitrobenzene. When the concentration of 1a is kept constant but that of the acceptor is varied, ø_P goes through a maximum at intermediate concentrations. Furthermore, ø_P is found to be larger for weaker acceptors (more negative reduction potential) than for stronger acceptors (less negative reduction potential). The rigid dye Coumarin 102 does not show any analogous decomposition. All results are interpreted in terms of the interference of the nitroaromatic with the self-quenching mechanism of coumarin N-dealkylation put forward recently by Jones and coworkers.     

Hydrogen bonding in electronically excited states of molecules

Theoretical Chemistry Accounts - CNDO/2 calculations show that hydrogen bonds in the electronically excited states of +H2O and +HOCH3 systems are slightly weaker than in the ground states. The...     

Supersonic expansion cooling of electronically excited OH radicals

Supersonic nozzle cooling of excited-state melecular radicals produced in a corona discharge is demonstrated and investigated using hydroxyl radicals. Rotational temperatures of 11 ± 2 K and vibrational temperatures of 3400 ± 300 K are typically observed in the OH A ²Σ⁺ state.     

Neutralization of ions at an electronically excited semiconductor surface

Neutralization of positive ions colliding with a semiconductor surface is studied. It is shown that the neutralization probability can be significantly enhanced if the surface exposed to the impinging ions is electronically excited. The basic reason behind this is that the impinging ions have easier access to the excited surface electrons than to bulk electrons.     

Collisionless infrared multiphoton production of electronically excited parent molecules

In the absence of collisions chromyl chloride (CrO₂Cl₂) shows orange fluorescence when the parent molecule is irradiated by the focused output Time-resolved fluorescence is investigated over the pressure range 5 × 10^?4 to 15 torr. As the pressure is increased, a secondary collision-ind We interpret the collisionless part of the emission to arise from infrared transitions between the high vibrational levels of the ground state and the     

Characterization of electronically excited states in anionic acetonitrile clusters

We have identified and examined the excited state of the cluster-solvated, valence-bound acetonitrile anion dimer, consistent with recent experimental findings, determining that the cluster excited state is of predominantly single-excitation character. Potential energy surface scans in coordinates specific to a "dissociative" normal mode common between the excited and ground states of the valence anion as well as the ground-state neutral dimer species shed light on the proposed vibrational autodetachment mechanism, with calculated excited-state lifetime consistent with experiment.     

Comments on heteronuclear electronically excited rare gas diatomic molecules

Experimental evidence for the stability of the electronically excited (KrAr)^* molecule is presented from the study of the vacuum ultraviolet luminescence spectra of Kr/Ar gaseous, liquid and solid mixtures.     

State-to-state dissociation rate coefficients in electronically excited diatomic gases

In the present Letter, state dependent dissociation rate coefficients in diatomic gases with non-equilibrium vibrational and electronic excitation and chemical reactions are studied. A widely used Treanor–Marrone model is generalized to take into account state-to-state vibrational and electronic distributions. The influence of electronic excitation on the rate of dissociation from various electronic states of CO molecules is estimated.     

Theoretical investigation of the electronically excited states of chlorine hydrate

As a step toward a first principles characterization of the optical properties of chlorine hydrate, we have calculated the electronic absorption spectrum of a chlorine molecule trapped in dodecahedral (H2O)20 and hexakaidodecahedral (H2O)24 cages. For comparison, spectra were also calculated for an isolated Cl2 molecule as well as for selected Cl2(H2O)n, n < or =8, clusters cut out of the Cl2(H2O)20 cluster, allowing us to follow the evolution of the low-lying excited states with increasing number of surrounding water molecules. Although encapsulation of a chlorine molecule within the water cages has relatively little effect on its low-lying valence transitions, it does result in a large number of solvent-to-solute charge-transfer transitions at energies starting near 48,000 cm(-1).     

Rotational perturbation between two electronically excited states of 4HeD

The rotational structure of the D ²Σ⁺ →A²Σ⁺ transition of ⁴HeD is highly perturbed, and this is caused by the near degeneracy of the D, ν=0 and C, ν=3 vibrational levels. A perturbation analysis is presented which yields the spectroscopic constants for both of the perturbing levels, yielding the first experimental information on a vibrationally excited state of HeH.     

Modeling the nonradiative decay rate of electronically excited thioflavin T

A computational model of nonradiative decay is developed and applied to explain the time-dependent emission spectrum of thioflavin T (ThT). The computational model is based on a previous model developed by Glasbeek and co-workers (van der Meer, M. J.; Zhang, H.; Glasbeek, M. J. Chem. Phys. 2000, 112, 2878) for auramine O, a molecule that, like ThT, exhibits a high nonradiative rate. The nonradiative rates of both auramine O and ThT are inversely proportional to the solvent viscosity. The Glasbeek model assumes that the excited state consists of an adiabatic potential surface constructed by adiabatic coupling of emissive and dark states. For ThT, the twist angle between the benzothiazole and the aniline is responsible for the extensive mixing of the two excited states. At a twist angle of 90°, the S(1) state assumes a charge-transfer-state character with very small oscillator strength, which causes the emission intensity to be very small as well. In the ground state, the twist angle of ThT is rather small. The photoexcitation leads first to a strongly emissive state (small twist angle). As time progresses, the twist angle increases and the oscillator strength decreases. The fit of the experimental results by the model calculations is good for times longer than 3 ps. When a two-coordinate model is invoked or a solvation spectral-shift component is added, the fit to the experimental results is good at all times.     

Cold chemistry with electronically excited Ca+ Coulomb crystals

Rate constants for chemical reactions of laser-cooled Ca(+) ions and neutral polar molecules (CH(3)F, CH(2)F(2), or CH(3)Cl) have been measured at low collision energies (/k(B)=5-243 K). Low kinetic energy ensembles of (40)Ca(+) ions are prepared through Doppler laser cooling to form "Coulomb crystals" in which the ions form a latticelike arrangement in the trapping potential. The trapped ions react with translationally cold beams of polar molecules produced by a quadrupole guide velocity selector or with room-temperature gas admitted into the vacuum chamber. Imaging of the Ca(+) ion fluorescence allows the progress of the reaction to be monitored. Product ions are sympathetically cooled into the crystal structure and are unambiguously identified through resonance-excitation mass spectrometry using just two trapped ions. Variations of the laser-cooling parameters are shown to result in different steady-state populations of the electronic states of (40)Ca(+) involved in the laser-cooling cycle, and these are modeled by solving the optical Bloch equations for the eight-level system. Systematic variation of the steady-state populations over a series of reaction experiments allows the extraction of bimolecular rate constants for reactions of the ground state ((2)S(1/2)) and the combined excited states ((2)D(3/2) and (2)P(1/2)) of (40)Ca(+). These results are analyzed in the context of capture theories and ab initio electronic structure calculations of the reaction profiles. In each case, suppression of the ground state rate constant is explained by the presence of a submerged or real barrier on the ground state potential surface. Rate constants for the excited states are generally found to be in line with capture theories.     

Variable metric optimization of molecular geometry in electronically excited states

The variable metric (VM) method is used to optimize molecular geometry in electronically excited states. A general expression for the first derivative of energy in the particular excited state is derived, considering configuration interaction of all singly excited configurations. A special expression for the excited states energy derivative is given for calculations with semiempirical methods of CNDO type. The geometry optimizations of a set of molecules in various excited states have been carried out by the CNDO/2 method. The results of computations have been discussed and compared with the available experimental data. A good agreement of the calculated geometries with the experimental ones has been shown in the first excited states and a relatively good agreement in the higher states, with some exceptions. Some special features of the proposed method are discussed.     

Quantum optimal control strategies for photoisomerization via electronically excited states

Optimal control of the photoisomerization of Li₂Na from the stable acute to the near-degenerate obtuse triangular configuration is simulated by means of representative wave packet dynamics on two ab initio potential energy surfaces for the electronic ground (X²A′) and excited (4²A′) states. Product state specifity is achieved by means of new iteration methods [W. Zhu, J. Botina and H. Rabitz, J. Chem. Phys. 108 (1998) 1953] which incorporate feedback from the control field. An additional restriction yields a smooth switch on and off behaviour of the optimized pulses. A windowed Fourier transform decomposes the optimized laser field into efficient pump–dump pulses