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Theoretical modeling of the solid‐state photocatalysis is one of the important issues as various useful photocatalysts have been developed to date. In this work, we investigated the mechanism of the alcohol photooxidation on niobium oxide (Nb2O5) which was experimentally developed, using the density functional theory (DFT)/time‐dependent (TD)DFT calculations based on the cluster model. The alcohol adsorption and the first hydrogen transfer from hydroxy group to surface occur in the ground state, while the second hydrogen transfer from CH proceeds in the excited states during the photoirradiation of UV or visible light. The spin crossing was identified and the low‐lying triplet states were solved for the reaction pathway. The photoabsorption in the visible light region was characterized as the charge transfer transition from O 2p of alcohol to Nb 4d of the Nb2O5 surface. The spin density and the natural population analysis indicated the generation of spin density in the moiety of carbonyl compound and its dissipation to the interface of the surface, which partly explains the electron paramagnetic resonance measurement. It was confirmed that the rate determining step is the desorption of carbonyl compound and water molecule in agreement with the experimental rate equation analysis. The present findings with the theoretical modeling will provide useful information for the further studies of the solid‐state photocatalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The photophysical properties of a series of recently synthesized single benzene fluorophores were investigated using ensemble density functional theory calculations. The energetic stability of the ground and excited state species were counterposed against the aromaticity index derived from local vibrational modes. It was found that the large Stokes shift of the fluorophores (up to ca. 5800 cm −1) originates from the effect of electron donating and electron withdrawing substituents rather than π‐delocalization and related (anti‐)aromaticity. On the basis of nonadiabatic molecular dynamics simulations, the absence of fluorescence from one of the regioisomers was explained by the occurrence of easily accessible S 1/S 0 conical intersections below the vertical excitation energy level. It is demonstrated in the manuscript that the analysis of local mode force constants and the related aromaticity index represent a useful tool for the characterization of π‐delocalization effects in π‐conjugated compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maximum overlap methods are effective tools for optimizing challenging ground‐ and excited‐state wave functions using self‐consistent field models such as Hartree‐Fock and Kohn‐Sham density functional theory. Nevertheless, such models have shown significant sensitivity to the user‐defined initial guess of the target wave function. In this work, a projection operator framework is defined and used to provide a metric for non‐aufbau orbital selection in maximum‐overlap‐methods. The resulting algorithms, termed the Projection‐based Maximum Overlap Method (PMOM) and Projection‐based Initial Maximum Overlap Method (PIMOM), are shown to perform exceptionally well when using simple user‐defined target solutions based on occupied/virtual molecular orbital permutations. This work also presents a new metric that provides a simple and conceptually convenient measure of agreement between the desired target and the current or final SCF results during a calculation employing a maximum‐overlap method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issue concerning accurate prediction of the reverse intersystem crossing rate (kRISC) is critical for developing novel efficient thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) materials. In this contribution, the kRISC rates from the lowest excited triplet T1 state to the lowest excited singlet S1 state were evaluated for five donor‐π‐acceptor‐type pyrimidine‐based TADF emitters using the semiclassical Marcus theory. Both the singlet‐triplet energy difference (ΔEST) and spin–orbit coupling (V) between the S1 and T1 states were investigated by performing the density functional theory (DFT) and time‐dependent density functional theory (TD‐DFT) calculations. In addition, their fluorescence emission wavelengths (λem) were also calculated at the TD‐DFT level. The predicted kRISC and λem values are found to reproduce well the available experimental findings. The present results reveal that the kRISC rates of molecules possessing the unsymmetrical diphenyl pyrimidine acceptor core are calculated to be slightly larger than those of their analogues with the symmetrical diphenyl pyrimidine. In addition, introducing two tert‐butyl groups into the 2,7‐positions of the donor moiety of the latter is also an effective method for increasing kRISC when designing TADF emitters. Such a difference is related to the nature of the T1 excited state. A more remarkable charge‐transfer (CT) contribution to the state can achieve a smaller ΔEST, leading to a more efficient RISC process, and consequently a shorter delayed fluorescence lifetime as observed experimentally. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Five molecules exhibiting the TADF behavior were studied theoretically. Calculations reveal that a remarkable charge‐transfer contribution to the T1 excited state can achieve a smaller singlet‐triplet energy difference. This leads to a more efficient reverse intersystem crossing process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three‐dimensional accurate potential energy surfaces around the local minima of NO2− and NO2 were calculated with the SAC/SAC‐CI analytical energy gradient method. Therefrom, the ionization photoelectron spectra of NO2−, the equilibrium geometries and adiabatic electron affinity of NO2, and the vibrational frequencies including harmonicity and anharmonicity of NO2− and NO2 were obtained. The calculated electron affinity was in reasonable agreement with the experimental value. The SAC‐CI photoelectron spectra of NO2− at 350 K and 700 K including the rotational effects were calculated using the Franck–Condon approximation. The theoretical spectra reproduced well the fine experimental photoelectron spectra observed by Ervin et al. (J. Phys. Chem. 1988, 92, 5405). The results showed that the ionizations from many vibrational excited states as well as the vibrational ground state are included in the experimental photoelectron spectra especially at 700 K and that the rotational effects are important to reproduce the experimental photoelectron spectra of both temperatures. The SAC/SAC‐CI theoretical results supported the analyses of the spectra by Ervin et al., except that we could show some small contributions from the asymmetric‐stretching mode of NO2−. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The SAC‐CI theoretical photoelectron spectra including the rotational effects have reproduced well the fine experimental photoelectron spectra of NO2− at both 350 K and 700 K observed by Ervin et al. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents an efficient algorithm to search for the poles of dynamic polarizability to obtain excited states of large systems with nonlocal excitation nature. The present algorithm adopts a homogeneous search with a constant frequency interval and a bisection search to achieve high accuracy. Furthermore, the subtraction process of the information about the detected poles from the total dynamic polarizability is used to extract the undetected pole contributions. Numerical assessments confirmed the accuracy and efficiency of the present algorithm in obtaining the excitation energies and oscillator strengths of all dipole-allowed excited states. A combination of the present pole-search algorithm and divide-and-conquer-based dynamic polarizability calculations was found to be promising to treat nonlocal excitations of large systems. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To tune the efficiency of organic semiconductor devices it is important to understand limiting factors as trapping mechanisms for excitons or charges. An understanding of such mechanisms deserves an accurate description of the involved electronical states in the given environment. In this study, we investigate how a polarizable surrounding influences the relative positions of electronically excited states of dimers of different perylene dyes. Polarization effects are particularly interesting for these systems, because gas phase computations predict that the CT states lie slightly above the corresponding Frenkel states. A polarizable environment may change this energy order because CT states are thought to be more sensitive to a polarizable surrounding than Frenkel states. A first insight we got via a TD-HF approach in combination with a polarizable continuum model (PCM). These give limited insights because TD-HF overestimates excitation energies of CT states. However, SCS-CC2 approaches, which are sufficiently accurate, cannot easily be used in combination with continuum solvent models. Hence, we developed two approaches to combine gas phase SCS-CC2 results with solvent effects based on TD-HF computations. Their accuracies were finally checked via ADC(2)//COSMO computations. The results show that for perylene dyes a polarizable surrounding alone does not influence the energetic ordering of CT and Frenkel states. Variations in the energy order of the states only result from nuclear relaxation effects after the excitation process. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficiency and accuracy of the perturbation-selection used in the symmetry-adapted cluster-configuration interaction (SAC-CI) calculations are investigated for several low-lying valence excited states of 21 medium-size molecules, including typical chromophores with heterocyclic macrocycles (free-base porphine, coumarin, indole, and BODIPY), nucleobases, amino acids (tyrosine and tryptophan), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and organometallics (ferrocene and Re(bpy) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) method has been carried out to investigate the excited-state hydrogen-bonding dynamics of 4-aminophthalimide (4AP) in hydrogen-donating water solvent. The infrared spectra of the hydrogen-bonded solute-solvent complexes in electronically excited state have been calculated using the TDDFT method. We have demonstrated that the intermolecular hydrogen bond C&dbond; O···H&bond;O and N&bond;H···O&bond;H in the hydrogen-bonded 4AP-(H2O)2 trimer are significantly strengthened in the electronically excited state by theoretically monitoring the changes of the bond lengths of hydrogen bonds and hydrogen-bonding groups in different electronic states. The hydrogen bonds strengthening in the electronically excited state are confirmed because the calculated stretching vibrational modes of the hydrogen bonding C&dbond;O, amino N&bond;H, and H&bond;O groups are markedly red-shifted upon photoexcitation. The calculated results are consistent with the mechanism of the hydrogen bond strengthening in the electronically excited state, while contrast with mechanism of hydrogen bond cleavage. Furthermore, we believe that the transient hydrogen bond strengthening behavior in electroniclly excited state of chromophores in hydrogen-donating solvents exists in many other systems in solution. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excited states of fluorene-ethylenedioxythiophene (FEDOT) and fluorene-S,S-dioxide-thiophene (FTSO2) monomers and dimers were studied by the symmetry-adapted cluster (SAC)-configuration interaction (CI) method. The absorption and emission peaks observed in the experimental spectra were theoretically assigned. The first three excited states of the optimized conformers, and the conformers of several torsional angles, were computed by SAC-CI/D95(d). Accurate absorption spectra were simulated by taking the thermal average for the conformers of torsional angles from 0° to 90°. The conformers of torsional angles 0°, 15°, and 30° mainly contributed to the absorption spectra. The full width at half-maximum of the FEDOT absorption band is 0.60 eV (4839 cm-1), which agrees very well with the experimental value of 0.61 eV (4900 cm-1). The maximum absorption wavelength is located at 303 nm, which is close to those of the experimental band (327 nm). The calculated absorption spectrum of FTSO2 showed two bands in the range of 225–450 nm. This agrees very well with the available experimental spectrum of a polymer of FTSO2, where two bands are detected. The excited-state geometries were investigated by CIS/6-31G(d). These showed a quinoid-type structure which exhibited a shortening of the inter-ring distance (0.06 Å for FEDOT and 0.04 Å for FTSO2). The calculated emission energy of FEDOT is 3.43 eV, which agrees very well with the available experimental data (3.46 eV). The fwhmE is about 0.49 eV (3952 cm-1), while the experimental fwhm is 0.43 eV (3500 cm-1). For FTSO2, two bands were also found in the emission spectrum. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) method was carried out to investigate the hydrogen-bonded intramolecular charge-transfer excited state of 2-(4′-N,N-dimethylaminophenyl)imidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (DMAPIP) in methanol (MeOH) solvent. All the geometric conformations of the ground state and locally excited (LE) state and the twisted intramolecular charge-transfer (TICT) state for isolated DMAPIP and its hydrogen-bonded complexes have been optimized. At the same time, the absorption and fluorescence spectra of DMAPIP and the hydrogen-bonded complexes in different electronic states are also calculated. We theoretically demonstrated for the first time that the intermolecular hydrogen bond formed between DMAPIP and MeOH can induce the formation of the TICT state for DMAPIP in MeOH solvent. Therefore, the two components at 414 and 506 nm observed in the fluorescence spectra of DMAPIP in MeOH solvent were reassigned in this work. The fluorescence peak at 414 nm is confirmed to be the LE state. Furthermore, the red-shifted shoulder at 506 nm should be originated from the hydrogen-bonded TICT excited state. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structural and electronic properties of fluorene-phenylene copolymer (FP)n, n = 1–4 were studied by means of quantum chemical calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) and time dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) using B3LYP functional. Geometry optimizations of these oligomers were performed for the ground state and the lowest singlet excited state. It was found that (FP)n is nonplanar in its ground state while the electronic excitations lead to planarity in its S1 state. Absorption and fluorescence energies were calculated using TD-B3LYP/SVP and TD-B3LYP/SVP+ methods. Vertical excitation energies and fluorescence energies were obtained by extrapolating these values to infinite chain length, resulting in extrapolated values for vertical excitation energy of 2.89 and 2.87 eV, respectively. The S1 ← S0 electronic excitation is characterized as a highest occupied molecular orbital to lowest unoccupied molecular orbital transition and is distinguishing in terms of oscillator strength. Fluorescence energies of (FP)n calculated from TD-B3LYP/SVP and TD-B3LYP/SVP+ methods are 2.27 and 2.26 eV, respectively. Radiative lifetimes are predicted to be 0.55 and 0.51 ns for TD-B3LYP/SVP and TD-B3LYP/SVP+ calculations, respectively. These fundamental information are valuable data in designing and making of promising materials for LED materials. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2010 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The geometric structures and infrared (IR) spectra in the electronically excited state of a novel doubly hydrogen-bonded complex formed by fluorenone and alcohols, which has been observed by IR spectra in experimental study, are investigated by the time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) method. The geometric structures and IR spectra in both ground state and the S1 state of this doubly hydrogen-bonded FN-2MeOH complex are calculated using the DFT and TDDFT methods, respectively. Two intermolecular hydrogen bonds are formed between FN and methanol molecules in the doubly hydrogen-bonded FN-2MeOH complex. Moreover, the formation of the second intermolecular hydrogen bond can make the first intermolecular hydrogen bond become slightly weak. Furthermore, it is confirmed that the spectral shoulder at around 1700 cm-1 observed in the IR spectra should be assigned as the doubly hydrogen-bonded FN-2MeOH complex from our calculated results. The electronic excited-state hydrogen bonding dynamics is also studied by monitoring some vibraitonal modes related to the formation of hydrogen bonds in different electronic states. As a result, both the two intermolecular hydrogen bonds are significantly strengthened in the S1 state of the doubly hydrogen-bonded FN-2MeOH complex. The hydrogen bond strengthening in the electronically excited state is similar to the previous study on the singly hydrogen-bonded FN-MeOH complex and play important role on the photophysics of fluorenone in solutions. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 2009 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The polarizable continuum model (PCM) for describing the solvent effect was combined with the fragment molecular orbital-based time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT). Several levels of the many-body expansion were implemented, and the importance of the many-body contributions to the singlet-excited states was discussed. To calibrate the accuracy, we performed a number of the model calculations using our method and the regular TDDFT in solution, applying them to phenol and polypeptides at the long-range corrected BLYP/6-31G* level. It was found that for systems up to 192 atoms the largest error in the excitation energy was 0.006 eV (vs. the regular TDDFT/PCM of the full system). The solvent shifts and the conformer effects were discussed, and the scaling was found to be nearly linear. Finally, we applied our method to the lowest singlet excitation of the photoactive yellow protein (PYP) in aqueous solution and determined the excitation energy to be in reasonable agreement with experiment. The excitation energy analysis provided the contributions of individual residues, and the main factors as well as their solvent shifts were determined. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 2008 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) method was carried out to investigate the hydrogen-bonded intramolecular charge-transfer (ICT) excited state of 4-dimethylaminobenzonitrile (DMABN) in methanol (MeOH) solvent. We demonstrated that the intermolecular hydrogen bond C≡N···H&bond;O formed between DMABN and MeOH can induce the C≡N stretching mode shift to the blue in both the ground state and the twisted intramolecular charge-transfer (TICT) state of DMABN. Therefore, the two components at 2091 and 2109 cm-1 observed in the time-resolved infrared (TRIR) absorption spectra of DMABN in MeOH solvent were reassigned in this work. The hydrogen-bonded TICT state should correspond to the blue-side component at 2109 cm-1, whereas not the red-side component at 2091 cm-1 designated in the previous study. It was also demonstrated that the intermolecular hydrogen bond C≡N···H&bond;O is significantly strengthened in the TICT state. The intermolecular hydrogen bond strengthening in the TICT state can facilitate the deactivation of the excited state via internal conversion (IC), and thus account for the fluorescence quenching of DMABN in protic solvents. Furthermore, the dynamic equilibrium of these electronically excited states is explained by the hydrogen bond strengthening in the TICT state. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2008 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A highly efficient new algorithm for time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) calculations is presented. In this algorithm, a dual-level approach to speed up DFT calculations (Nakajima and Hirao, J Chem Phys 2006, 124, 184108) is combined with a state-specific (SS) algorithm for TDDFT (Chiba et al., Chem Phys Lett 2006, 420, 391). The dual-level SS-TDDFT algorithm was applied to excitation energy calculations of typical small molecules, the Q bands of the chlorophyll A molecule, the charge-transfer energy of the zincbacteriochlorin–bacteriochlorin model system, and the lowest-lying excitation of the circumcoronene molecule. As a result, it was found that the dual-level SS-TDDFT gave correct excitation energies with errors of 0.2–0.3 eV from the standard TDDFT approach, with much lower CPU times for various types of excitation energies of large-scale molecules. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2008 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of methyl or phenyl substitution in β-position of dioxygenated terthiophene and diphenylthiophene on the optical properties is investigated by first-principles calculations. We compare the approximated singles and doubles coupled cluster (CC2) approach with time-dependent density functional theory methods. CC2 reproduces experimental excitation energies with an accuracy of 0.1 eV. We find that the different substituents modify the inter-ring torsional angle which in turn strongly influences the excitation energies. The steric contribution to the excitation energies have been separated from the total substituent effects. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2008 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structural and electronic properties of the fluorene-pyridine copolymer (FPy)n, (n = 1–4) were investigated theoretically by means of quantum mechanical calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) using the B3LYP functional. Geometry optimizations of these oligomers were performed for the ground state and the lowest excited state. It was found that (FPy)n is nonplanar in its ground state, whereas a more pronounced trend toward planarity is observed in the S1 state. Absorption and fluorescence energies have been extrapolated to infinite chain length making use of their good linearity with respect to 1/n. An extrapolated value of 2.64 eV is obtained for vertical excitation energy. The S1←S0 electronic excitation is characterized as a highest occupied molecular orbital to lowest unoccupied molecular orbital transition and is dominating in terms of oscillator strength. Fluorescence energies and radiative lifetime were calculated as well. The obtained results indicate that the fluorescence energy and radiative lifetime of (FPy)n are 2.16 eV and 0.38 ns, respectively. The decrease of fluorescence energy and radiative lifetime with the increase in the chain length is discussed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2007 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]