Ultrafast internal conversion of aromatic molecules studied by photoelectron spectroscopy using Sub-20 fs laser pulses

Time-dependent photoemission from droplets: influence of size and charge on the photophysics near the surface

Photoemission from submicrometer droplets containing a mixture of dioctyl phthalate and dioctyl sebacate was investigated by femtosecond and nanosecond photoionization. Photoelectron spectra recorded after ionization with single 4.7 eV femtosecond or nanosecond laser pulses showed marked differences between the two cases. These differences were attributed to ionization of long-lived states which only occurred within the duration of the nanosecond pulse. The tentative assignment of the long-lived states to dioctyl phthalate triplet states is discussed. A nanosecond–femtosecond pump–probe scheme using 4.7 eV (pump) and 3.1 eV (probe) pulses was used to investigate the decay dynamics of these long-lived states. The dynamics showed an accelerated decay rate at higher dioctyl phthalate concentrations. Furthermore, the dependence of the decay dynamics on droplet size and charge was investigated. The decay of the long-lived states was found to be faster in smaller droplets as well as in neutral droplets compared with both positively and negatively charged droplets. Possible mechanisms to explain these observations and the dominance of contributions from the droplets surface are discussed.

Time-resolved photoemission spectroscopy is used to study the photophysics of droplets containing dioctyl phthalate. Long-lived excited states survive longer at lower phthalate concentrations, and in larger or electrically charged droplets.

Excited-State Dynamics Affected by Switching of a Hydrogen-Bond Network in Hydrated Aminopyrazine Clusters

The cluster structures of hydrated aminopyrazines, APz-(H₂O)_n=2-4, in supersonic jets have been investigated measuring the size-selected electronic and vibrational spectra and determined with the aid of quantum chemical calculations. The APz-(H₂O)₂ structure is assigned as a cyclic N1 type where a homodromic hydrogen-bond chain starts from the amino group and ends at the 1-position nitrogen atom of the pyrazine moiety, corresponding to 2-aminopyridine-(H₂O)₂. On the other hand, APz-(H₂O)_n=3,4 has a linear hydrogen-bond network ending at the 4-position one (N4), which resembles 3-aminopyridine-(H₂O)_n=3,4. The hydrogen-bond network switching from the N1 type to the N4 one provides the accompanying red shifts of the S₁-S₀ electronic transition that are entirely consistent with those of the corresponding 2-aminopyridine and 3-aminopyridine clusters and also shows the drastically strengthened fluorescence intensity of origin bands in the electronic spectrum. The significant change in the excited-state dynamics is explored by the fluorescence lifetime measurement and the time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) calculation. It is suggested that the drastic elongation of fluorescence lifetimes is due to the change in the electronic structure of the first excited state from nπ* to ππ*, resulting in the decreasing spin-orbit coupling to T₁ (ππ*).

Time-resolved observation of interatomic excitation-energy transfer in argon dimers

The ultrafast transfer of excitation energy from one atom to its neighbor is observed in singly charged argon dimers in a time-resolved extreme ultraviolet (XUV)-pump IR-probe experiment. In the pump step, bound 3s-hole states in the dimer are populated by single XUV-photon ionization. The excitation-energy transfer at avoided crossings of the potential-energy curves leads to dissociation of the dimer, which is experimentally observed by further ionization with a time-delayed IR-probe pulse. From the measured pump-probe delay-dependent kinetic-energy release of coincident Ar⁺ + Ar⁺ ions, we conclude that the transfer of energy occurs on a time scale of about 800fs. This mechanism represents a fast relaxation process below the energy threshold for interatomic Coulombic decay.

Dissipative dynamics at conical intersections: simulations with the hierarchy equations of motion method

The effect of a dissipative environment on the ultrafast nonadiabatic dynamics at conical intersections is analyzed for a two-state two-mode model chosen to represent the S₂(ππ*)–S₁(nπ*) conical intersection in pyrazine (the system) which is bilinearly coupled to infinitely many harmonic oscillators in thermal equilibrium (the bath). The system–bath coupling is modeled by the Drude spectral function. The equation of motion for the reduced density matrix of the system is solved numerically exactly with the hierarchy equation of motion method using graphics-processor-unit (GPU) technology. The simulations are valid for arbitrary strength of the system–bath coupling and arbitrary bath memory relaxation time. The present computational studies overcome the limitations of weak system–bath coupling and short memory relaxation time inherent in previous simulations based on multi-level Redfield theory [A. Kühl and W. Domcke, J. Chem. Phys. 2002, 116, 263]. Time evolutions of electronic state populations and time-dependent reduced probability densities of the coupling and tuning modes of the conical intersection have been obtained. It is found that even weak coupling to the bath effectively suppresses the irregular fluctuations of the electronic populations of the isolated two-mode conical intersection. While the population of the upper adiabatic electronic state (S₂) is very efficiently quenched by the system–bath coupling, the population of the diabatic ππ* electronic state exhibits long-lived oscillations driven by coherent motion of the tuning mode. Counterintuitively, the coupling to the bath can lead to an enhanced lifetime of the coherence of the tuning mode as a result of effective damping of the highly excited coupling mode, which reduces the strong mode–mode coupling inherent to the conical intersection. The present results extend previous studies of the dissipative dynamics at conical intersections to the nonperturbative regime of system–bath coupling. They pave the way for future first-principles simulations of femtosecond time-resolved four-wave-mixing spectra of chromophores in condensed phases which are nonperturbative in the system dynamics, the system–bath coupling as well as the field-matter coupling.