Near-contact adiabatic suppression of electron transfer in the inverted region

Symmetry Effects in Photoinduced Electron Transfer in Chlorin‐Quinone Dyads: Adiabatic Suppression in the Marcus Inverted Region

In donor–acceptor dyads undergoing photoinduced electron transfer (PET), a direction or pathway for electron movement is usually dictated by the redox properties and the separation distance between the donor and acceptor subunits, while the effect of symmetry is less recognized. We have designed and synthesized two isomeric donor–acceptor assemblies in which electronic coupling between donor and acceptor is altered by the orbital symmetry control with the reorganization energy and charge transfer exothermicity being kept unchanged. Analysis of the optical absorption and luminescence spectra, supported by the DFT and TD‐DFT calculations, showed that PET in these assemblies corresponds to the Marcus inverted region (MIR) and has larger rate for isomer with weaker electronic coupling. This surprising observation provides the first experimental evidence for theoretically predicted adiabatic suppression of PET in MIR, which unambiguously controlled solely by symmetry.

Bimolecular photo-induced electron transfer enlightened by diffusion

Photochemical electron transfer between freely diffusing molecules has been studied extensively. Here, we try to elucidate how much these works have contributed to the understanding of electron transfer. To this end, we have revisited the work performed in the experimental and theoretical areas of concern from the beginning of the 20th century up to the present day. We present a critical look at the major contributions and compile the current picture of a variety of phenomena around electron transfer in solution. This is based on two main developments, besides the theory of Marcus: encounter theories of diffusion and laser techniques in time-resolved spectroscopy.

Quantum effect of intramolecular high-frequency vibrational modes on diffusion-controlled electron transfer rate: From the weak to the strong electronic coupling regions

The Sumi-Marcus theory is extended by introducing two approaches to investigate electron transfer reactions from weak-to-strong electronic coupling regime. One of these approaches is the quantum R-matrix theory, useful for dealing with the intramolecular vibrational motions in the whole electronic coupling domain. The other is the split operator approach that is employed to solve the reaction-diffusion equation. The approaches are then applied to electron transfer in the Marcus inverted regime to investigate the nuclear tunneling effect on the long time rate and the survival probabilities. The numerical results illustrate that the adiabatic suppression obtained from the R-matrix approach is much smaller than that from the Landau-Zener theory whereas it cannot be predicted by the perturbation theory. The jointed effects of the electronic coupling and solvent relaxation time on the rates are also explored.

Semiclassical Treatment of Thermally Activated Electron Transfer in the Inverted Region under the Fast Dielectric Relaxation

The previously formulated semiclassical theory (Zhao, Liang, and Nakamura, J. Phys. Chem. A 2006, 110, 8204) is used to study electron transfer in the Marcus inverted case by considering multidimensional potential energy surfaces of donor and acceptor. The Zhu-Nakamura formulas of nonadiabatic transition in the case of Landau-Zener type are incorporated into the approach. The theory properly takes into account the nonadiabatic transition coupled with the nuclear tunneling and can cover the whole range from weak to strong coupling regime uniformly under the assumption of fast solvent relaxation. The numerical calculations are performed for the 12-dimensional model of shifted harmonic oscillators and demonstrate that the reaction rate with respect to the electronic coupling shows a maximum, confirming the adiabatic suppression in the strong coupling limit. The adiabatic suppression is dramatically reduced by the effect of nuclear tunneling compared to the case that the Landau-Zener formula is used. The possible extension and applications to the case of the slow solvent dynamics are discussed.