Non-vertical excitation energies for low-lying singlet states of butadiene and hexatriene

Using diketopyrrolopyrroles to stabilize double excitation and control internal conversion

Diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) is a pivotal functional group to tune the physicochemical properties of novel organic photoelectronic materials. Among multiple uses, DPP-thiophene derivatives forming a dimer through a vinyl linker were recently shown to quench the fluorescence observed in their isolated monomers. Here, we explain this fluorescence quenching using computational chemistry. The DPP-thiophene dimer has a low-lying doubly excited state that is not energetically accessible for the monomer. This state delays the fluorescence allowing internal conversion to occur first. We characterize the doubly excited state wavefunction by systematically changing the derivatives to tune the π-scaffold size and the acceptor and donor characters. The origin of this state's stabilization is related to the increase in the π-system and not to the charge-transfer features. This analysis delivers core conceptual information on the electronic properties of organic chromophores arranged symmetrically around a vinyl linker, opening new ways to control the balance between luminescence and internal conversion.

Quantum chemical description of absorption properties and excited-state processes in photosynthetic systems

The theoretical description of the initial steps in photosynthesis has gained increasing importance over the past few years. This is caused by more and more structural data becoming available for light-harvesting complexes and reaction centers which form the basis for atomistic calculations and by the progress made in the development of first-principles methods for excited electronic states of large molecules. In this Review, we discuss the advantages and pitfalls of theoretical methods applicable to photosynthetic pigments. Besides methodological aspects of excited-state electronic-structure methods, studies on chlorophyll-type and carotenoid-like molecules are discussed. We also address the concepts of exciton coupling and excitation-energy transfer (EET) and compare the different theoretical methods for the calculation of EET coupling constants. Applications to photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes and reaction centers based on such models are also analyzed.

Theoretical predictions of red and near-infrared strongly emitting X-annulated rylenes

The optical properties of rylenes are extremely interesting because their emission colors can be tuned from blue to near-infrared by simply elongating the chain length. However, for conjugated chains, the dipole-allowed odd-parity 1B(u) excited state often lies above the dipole-forbidden even-parity 2A(g) state as the chain length increases, thus preventing any significant luminescence according to Kasha's rule. We systemically investigated the 1B(u)∕2A(g) crossover behaviors with respect to the elongating rylene chain length with various quantum chemistry approaches, such as time-depended density functional theory (TDDFT), complete active space self-consistent field theory (CASSCF∕CASPT2), multireference configuration interaction (MRCI)∕Zerner's intermediate neglect of diatomic overlap (ZINDO), and MRCI∕modified neglect of differential overlap. The calculated results by CASSCF∕CASPT2 and MRCI∕ZINDO are completely coherent: the optical active 1B(u) state lies below the dark B(3g) or 2A(g) state for perylene and terrylene, which results in strong fluorescence; while a crossover to S(1) = 2A(g) occurs and leads to much weaker fluorescence for quaterrylene. Then we put forward a molecular design rule on how to recover fluorescence for the longer rylenes by introducing heteroatom bridges. Several heteroatom-annulated rylenes are designed theoretically, which are predicted to be strongly emissive in the red and near-infrared ranges. These are further confirmed by theoretical emission spectra as well as radiative and nonradiative decay rate calculations by using the vibration correlation function formalisms we developed earlier coupled with TDDFT.

Photostability via a Sloped Conical Intersection: A CASSCF and RASSCF Study of Pyracylene

An extensive ab initio study of the ground- and excited-state potential energy surfaces of pyracylene is presented in this work. CASSCF calculations show that there is an accessible sloped S0/S1 conical intersection, which leads to ultrafast internal conversion and explains the observed photostability. RASSCF calculations (using a well-defined subset of the CASSCF configurations) are shown to be able to reproduce CASSCF results satisfactorily and will therefore be useful for larger systems where CASSCF is currently too expensive. MRCI and MRPT2 energy corrections are computed to assess the ionic character of the excited states. Finally, MMVB calculations are also benchmarked against CASSCF, to assess the reliability of this parametrized method for excited states of large conjugated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Theoretical study of the lowest π→π* excitation energies for neutral and doped polyenes

In earlier theoretical studies, it has been widely noticed that the electron correlation effect played an important role in determining the excitation energies of low-lying pi-->pi(*) excited states for neutral polyenes and their radical cations and dications. In this paper, neutral and doped polyene oligomers of medium to large sizes are investigated with the Pariser-Parr-Pople model, and the pi-electron correlation effect is fully taken into consideration by virtue of the density-matrix renormalization group method. The excitation properties in the polymer limit are also obtained by exponential extrapolation from the finite oligomers. The reasonable agreement of our results with the available experimental observations and advanced ab initio calculations is witnessed. It is also observed that while charge doping can significantly lower the exciting energy, the odd-charged oligomers show lower excitation energies than the even-charged ones.

A computational strategy for geometry optimization of ionic and covalent excited states, applied to butadiene and hexatriene

We propose a computational strategy that enables ionic and covalent pipi* excited states to be described in a balanced way. This strategy depends upon (1) the restricted active space self-consistent field method, in which the dynamic correlation between core sigma and valence pi electrons can be described by adding single sigma excitations to all pi configurations and (2) the use of a new conventional one-electron basis set specifically designed for the description of valence ionic states. Together, these provide excitation energies comparable with more accurate and expensive ab initio methods--e.g., multiconfigurational second-order perturbation theory and multireference configuration interaction. Moreover, our strategy also allows full optimization of excited-state geometries--including conical intersections between ionic and covalent excited states--to be routinely carried out, thanks to the availability of analytical energy gradients. The prototype systems studied are the cis and trans isomers of butadiene and hexatriene, for which the ground 1A(1/g), lower-lying dark (i.e., symmetry forbidden covalent) 2A(1/g) and spectroscopic 1B(2/u) (valence ionic) states were investigated.