Spin-Orbit Interactions in Ultrafast Molecular Processes

Surface hopping modeling of charge and energy transfer in active environments

An active environment is any atomic or molecular system changing a chromophore's nonadiabatic dynamics compared to the isolated molecule. The action of the environment on the chromophore occurs by changing the potential energy landscape and triggering new energy and charge flows unavailable in the vacuum. Surface hopping is a mixed quantum-classical approach whose extreme flexibility has made it the primary platform for implementing novel methodologies to investigate the nonadiabatic dynamics of a chromophore in active environments. This Perspective paper surveys the latest developments in the field, focusing on charge and energy transfer processes.

Exact Factorization Adventures: A Promising Approach for Non-Bound States

Modeling the dynamics of non-bound states in molecules requires an accurate description of how electronic motion affects nuclear motion and vice-versa. The exact factorization (XF) approach offers a unique perspective, in that it provides potentials that act on the nuclear subsystem or electronic subsystem, which contain the effects of the coupling to the other subsystem in an exact way. We briefly review the various applications of the XF idea in different realms, and how features of these potentials aid in the interpretation of two different laser-driven dissociation mechanisms. We present a detailed study of the different ways the coupling terms in recently-developed XF-based mixed quantum-classical approximations are evaluated, where either truly coupled trajectories, or auxiliary trajectories that mimic the coupling are used, and discuss their effect in both a surface-hopping framework as well as the rigorously-derived coupled-trajectory mixed quantum-classical approach.

Intersystem crossing and internal conversion dynamics with GAIMS-TeraChem: Excited state relaxation in 2-cyclopentenone

Excited states relaxation in complex molecules often involves two types of nonradiative transitions, internal conversion (IC) and intersystem crossing (ISC). In the situations when the timescales of IC and ISC are comparable, an interplay between these two types of transitions can lead to complex nonadiabatic dynamics on multiple electronic states of different characters and spin multiplicities. We demonstrate that the generalized ab initio multiple spawning (GAIMS) method interfaced with the fast graphics processing unit-based TeraChem electronic structure code can be used to model such nonadiabatic dynamics involving both the IC and ISC transitions in molecules of moderate size. We carried out 1500 fs GAIMS simulations leading to the creation of up to 2500 trajectory basis functions to study the excited states relaxation in 2-cyclopentenone. After a vertical excitation from the ground state to the bright S₂ state, the molecule quickly relaxes to the S₁ state via conical intersection. The following relaxation proceeds along two competing pathways: one involves IC to the ground state, and the other is dominated by ISC to the low-lying triplet states. The time constants describing the population transfer between the six lowest singlet and triplet states predicted by the GAIMS dynamics are in good agreement with the characteristic times of IC and ISC obtained from the analysis of the time-resolved photoelectron spectrum.

Nonadiabatic Dynamics with Coupled Trajectories

In this paper, we discuss coupled-trajectory schemes for molecular-dynamics simulations of excited-state processes. New coupled-trajectory strategies to capture decoherence effects, revival of coherence and nonadiabatic interferences in long-time dynamics are proposed, and compared to independent-trajectory schemes. The working framework is provided by the exact factorization of the electron-nuclear wave function, and it exploits ideas emanating from various surface-hopping schemes. The new coupled-trajectory algorithms are tested on a one-dimensional two-state system using different model parameters which allow one to induce different dynamics. The benchmark is provided by the numerically exact solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation.

Quantum-classical nonadiabatic dynamics of Floquet driven systems

We develop a trajectory-based approach for excited-state molecular dynamics simulations of systems subject to an external periodic drive. We combine the exact-factorization formalism, allowing us to treat electron-nuclear systems in nonadiabatic regimes, with the Floquet formalism for time-periodic processes. The theory is developed starting with the molecular time-dependent Schrödinger equation with the inclusion of an external periodic drive that couples to the system dipole moment. With the support of the Floquet formalism, quantum dynamics is approximated by combining classical-like, trajectory-based, nuclear evolution with electronic dynamics represented in the Floquet basis. The resulting algorithm, which is an extension of the coupled-trajectory mixed quantum-classical scheme for periodically driven systems, is applied to a model study, exactly solvable, with different field intensities.

The spin-orbit interaction controls photoinduced interfacial electron transfer in fullerene-perovskite heterojunctions: C60versus C70

Here, we used collinear and noncollinear density functional theory (DFT) methods to explore the interfacial properties of two heterojunctions between a fullerene (C₆₀ and C₇₀) and the MAPbI₃(110) surface. Methodologically, consideration of the spin-orbit interaction has been proven to be required to obtain accurate energy-level alignment and interfacial carrier dynamics between fullerenes and perovskites in hybrid perovskite solar cells including heavy atoms (such as Pb atoms). Both heterojunctions are predicted to be the same type-II heterojunction, but the interfacial electron transfer process from MAPbI₃ to C₆₀ is completely distinct from that to C₇₀. In the former, the interfacial electron transfer is slow because of the associated large energy gap, and the excited electrons are thus trapped in MAPbI₃ for a while. In contrast, in the latter, the smaller energy gap induces ultrafast electron transfer from MAPbI₃ to C₇₀. These points are further supported by DFT-based nonadiabatic dynamics simulations including the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) effects. These gained insights could help rationally design superior fullerene-perovskite interfaces to achieve high power conversion efficiencies of fullerene-perovskite solar cells.

Spin-Orbit Coupling Accelerates the Photoinduced Interfacial Electron Transfer in a Fullerene-Based Perovskite Heterojunction

In this work, we explore the interfacial properties of the C₆₀-Py@MAPbI₃ heterojunction of the PbI-terminated MAPbI₃(001) surface and pyridine-functionalized C₆₀-Py fullerene derivative through both collinear and noncollinear density functional theory calculations with and without spin-orbit coupling (SOC) effects. C₆₀-Py is bound to the MAPbI₃ surface through interfacial Pb-O and Pb-N bonds. Although C₆₀-Py@MAPbI₃ is predicted to be the same type II heterojunction at all of the computational levels considered, the SOC effects largely decrease the energy gap of the first conduction bands of C₆₀-Py and MAPbI₃, thereby accelerating the interfacial electron transfer. Further dynamics simulations show that the inclusion of the SOC effects induces the transfer of approximately 80% of electrons from MAPbI₃ to C₆₀-Py within 1 ps. The work demonstrates that the SOC effects are indispensable for the interfacial properties of C₆₀-Py@MAPbI₃ and could also play a non-negligible role in tuning the optoelectronic properties of fullerene-based or similar perovskite devices.

Relaxation dynamics through a conical intersection: Quantum and quantum-classical studies

We study the relaxation process through a conical intersection of a photo-excited retinal chromophore model. The analysis is based on a two-electronic-state two-dimensional Hamiltonian developed by Hahn and Stock [J. Phys. Chem. B 104 1146 (2000)] to reproduce, with a minimal model, the main features of the 11-cis to all-trans isomerization of the retinal of rhodopsin. In particular, we focus on the performance of various trajectory-based schemes to nonadiabatic dynamics, and we compare quantum-classical results to the numerically exact quantum vibronic wavepacket dynamics. The purpose of this work is to investigate, by analyzing electronic and nuclear observables, how the sampling of initial conditions for the trajectories affects the subsequent dynamics.

Quantum and Quantum-Classical Studies of the Photoisomerization of a Retinal Chromophore Model

We report an in-depth analysis of the photo-induced isomerization of the 2-cis-penta-2,4-dieniminium cation: a minimal model of the 11-cis retinal protonated Schiff base chromophore of the dim-light photoreceptor rhodopsin. Based on recently developed three-dimensional potentials parametrized on ab initio multi-state multi-configurational second-order perturbation theory data, we perform quantum-dynamical studies. In addition, simulations based on various quantum-classical methods, among which Tully surface hopping and the coupled-trajectory approach derived from the exact factorization, allow us to validate their performance against vibronic wavepacket propagation and, therefore, a purely quantum treatment. Quantum-dynamics results uncover qualitative differences with respect to the two-dimensional Hahn-Stock potentials, widely used as model potentials for the isomerization of the same chromophore, due to the increased dimensionality and three-mode correlation. Quantum-classical simulations show, instead, that three-dimensional model potentials are capable of capturing a number of features revealed by atomistic simulations and experimental observations. In particular, a recently reported vibrational phase relationship between double-bond torsion and hydrogen-out-of-plane modes critical for rhodopsin isomerization efficiency is correctly reproduced.

Quantum Trajectories for the Dynamics in the Exact Factorization Framework: A Proof-of-Principle Test

In the framework of the exact factorization of the time-dependent electron-nuclear wave function, we investigate the possibility of solving the nuclear time-dependent Schrödinger equation based on trajectories. The nuclear equation is separated in a Hamilton-Jacobi equation for the phase of the wave function, and a continuity equation for its (squared) modulus. For illustrative adiabatic and nonadiabatic one-dimensional models, we implement a procedure to follow the evolution of the nuclear density along the characteristics of the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. Those characteristics are referred to as quantum trajectories, since they are generated via ordinary differential equations similar to Hamilton's equations, but including the so-called quantum potential, and they can be used to reconstruct exactly the quantum-mechanical nuclear wave function, provided infinite initial conditions are propagated in time.

Internal Conversion and Intersystem Crossing with the Exact Factorization

We present a detailed derivation of the generalized coupled-trajectory mixed quantum-classical (G-CT-MQC) algorithm based on the exact-factorization equations. The ultimate goal is to propose an algorithm that can be employed for molecular dynamics simulations of nonradiative phenomena, as the spin-allowed internal conversions and the spin-forbidden intersystem crossings. Internal conversions are nonadiabatic processes driven by the kinetic coupling between electronic states, whereas intersystem crossings are mediated by the spin-orbit coupling. In this paper, we discuss computational issues related to the suitable representation for electronic dynamics and the different natures of kinetic and spin-orbit coupling. Numerical studies on model systems allow us to test the performance of the G-CT-MQC algorithm in different situations.