Quantitative description of interactions between linear organic chromophores

Ultrafast Electronic Energy Transfer in an Orthogonal Molecular Dyad

Understanding electronic energy transfer (EET) is an important ingredient in the development of artificial photosynthetic systems and photovoltaic technologies. Although EET is at the heart of these applications and crucially influences their light-harvesting efficiency, the nature of EET over short distances for covalently bound donor and acceptor units is often not well understood. Here we investigate EET in an orthogonal molecular dyad (BODT4), in which simple models fail to explain the very origin of EET. On the basis of nonadiabatic ab initio molecular dynamics calculations and ultrafast fluorescence experiments, we gain detailed microscopic insights into the ultrafast electrovibrational dynamics following photoexcitation. Our analysis offers molecular-level insights into these processes and reveals that it takes place on time scales ≲100 fs and occurs through an intermediate charge-transfer state.

General Force-Field Parametrization Scheme for Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Conjugated Materials in Solution

We describe a general scheme to obtain force-field parameters for classical molecular dynamics simulations of conjugated polymers. We identify a computationally inexpensive methodology for calculation of accurate intermonomer dihedral potentials and partial charges. Our findings indicate that the use of a two-step methodology of geometry optimization and single-point energy calculations using DFT methods produces potentials which compare favorably to high level theory calculation. We also report the effects of varying the conjugated backbone length and alkyl side-chain lengths on the dihedral profiles and partial charge distributions and determine the existence of converged lengths above which convergence is achieved in the force-field parameter sets. We thus determine which calculations are required for accurate parametrization and the scope of a given parameter set for variations to a given molecule. We perform simulations of long oligomers of dioctylfluorene and hexylthiophene in explicit solvent and find peristence lengths and end-length distributions consistent with experimental values.

Excitonic effects from geometric order and disorder explain broadband optical absorption in eumelanin

Eumelanin is a ubiquitous biological pigment, and the origin of its broadband absorption spectrum has long been a topic of scientific debate. Here, we report a first-principles computational investigation to explain its broadband absorption feature. These computations are complemented by experimental results showing a broadening of the absorption spectra of dopamine solutions upon their oxidation. We consider a variety of eumelanin molecular structures supported by experiments or theoretical studies, and calculate the absorption spectra with proper account of the excitonic couplings based on the Frenkel exciton model. The interplay of geometric order and disorder of eumelanin aggregate structures broadens the absorption spectrum and gives rise to a relative enhancement of absorption intensity at the higher-energy end, proportional to the cube of absorption energy. These findings show that the geometric disorder model is as able as the chemical disorder model, and complements this model, to describe the optical properties of eumelanin.