Structures and conformations of acridinium mono- and polymethine cyanine dyes and their UV–Vis absorption spectra in protic solvents: A PCM/TD-DFT study

Supra-molecular inter-actions in a 1:1 co-crystal of acridine and 3-chloro-thio-phene-2-carb-oxy-lic acid

In the title co-crystal, C5H3ClO2S·C13H9N, the components inter-act with each other via an O-H⋯N hydrogen bond. Acridine-acridine stacking, thio-phene-thio-phene stacking and acridine-thio-phene C-H⋯π inter-actions also occur in the crystal.

Verdict: Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory "Not Guilty" of Large Errors for Cyanines

We assess the accuracy of eight Minnesota density functionals (M05 through M08-SO) and two others (PBE and PBE0) for the prediction of electronic excitation energies of a family of four cyanine dyes. We find that time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) with the five most recent of these functionals (from M06-HF through M08-SO) is able to predict excitation energies for cyanine dyes within 0.10-0.36 eV accuracy with respect to the most accurate available Quantum Monte Carlo calculations, providing a comparable accuracy to the latest generation of CASPT2 calculations, which have errors of 0.16-0.34 eV. Therefore previous conclusions that TDDFT cannot treat cyanine dyes reasonably accurately must be revised.