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Chiral and enantiopure perfluorinated sulfonimidamides act as low-molecular weight gelators at low critical gelation concentration (<1 mg mL-1) via supramolecular polymerization in nonpolar organic solvents and more heterogenic mixtures, such as biodiesel and oil. Freeze-drying of the organogel leads to ultralight aerogel with extremely low density (1 mg mL-1). The gelation is driven by hydrogen bonding resulting in a helical molecular ordering and unique fibre assemblies as confirmed by scanning electron microscopy, CD spectroscopy, and computational modeling of the supramolecular structure., QC 20240603

Molecules that can undergo reversible chemical transformations following the absorption of light, the so-called molecular photoswitches, have attracted increasing attention in technologies, such as solar energy storage. Here, the optical and thermochemical properties of the photoswitch are central to its applicability, and these properties are influenced significantly by solvation. We investigate the effects of solvation on two norbornadiene/quadricyclane photoswitches. Emphasis is put on the energy difference between the two isomers and the optical absorption as these are central to the application of the systems in solar energy storage. Using a combined classical molecular dynamics and quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical computational scheme, we showcase that the dynamic effects of solvation are important. In particular, it is found that standard implicit solvation models generally underestimate the energy difference between the two isomers and overestimate the strength of the absorption, while the explicit solvation spectra are also less red-shifted than those obtained using implicit solvation models. We also find that the absorption spectra of the two systems are strongly correlated with specific dihedral angles. Altogether, this highlights the importance of including the dynamic effects of solvation., QC 20240412

Distinct aggregated proteins are correlated with numerous neurodegenerative diseases and the development of ligands that selectively detect these pathological hallmarks is vital. Recently, the synthesis of thiophene-based optical ligands, denoted bi-thiophene-vinyl-benzothiazoles (bTVBTs), that could be utilized for selective assignment of tau pathology in brain tissue with Alzheimers disease (AD) pathology, was reported. Herein, we investigate the ability of these ligands to selectively distinguish tau deposits from aggregated amyloid-beta (A beta), the second AD associated pathological hallmark, when replacing the terminal thiophene moiety with other heterocyclic motifs. The selectivity for tau pathology was reduced when introducing specific heterocyclic motifs, verifying that specific molecular interactions between the ligands and the aggregates are necessary for selective detection of tau deposits. In addition, ligands having certain heterocyclic moieties attached to the central thiophene-vinylene building block displayed selectivity to aggregated A beta pathology. Our findings provide chemical insights for the development of ligands that can distinguish between aggregated proteinaceous species consisting of different proteins and might also aid in creating novel agents for clinical imaging of tau pathology in AD., Funding Agencies|U.S. National Institutes of Health [UO1NS110437]; Swedish Research Council [2016-00748]; Swedish Brain Foundation; Swedish Alzheimer Foundation; Konung Gustaf V:s och Drottning Victorias Frimurarestiftelse; Torsten Soderberg Foundation

We present the implementation of an efficient matrix-folded formalism for the evaluation of complex response functions and the calculation of transition properties at the level of the second-order algebraic-diagrammatic construction (ADC(2)) scheme. The underlying algorithms, in combination with the adopted hybrid MPI/OpenMP parallelization strategy, enabled calculations of the UV/vis spectra of a guanine oligomer series ranging up to 1032 contracted basis functions, thereby utilizing vast computational resources from up to 32,768 CPU cores. Further analysis of the convergence behavior of the involved iterative subspace algorithms revealed the superiority of a frequency-separated treatment of response equations even for a large spectral window, including 101 frequencies. We demonstrate the applicability to general quantum mechanical operators by the first reported electronic circular dichroism spectrum calculated with a complex polarization propagator approach at the ADC(2) level of theory., QC 20240122

Self-assembled nanotubesexhibit impressive biologicalfunctionsthat have always inspired supramolecular scientists in their effortsto develop strategies to build such structures from small moleculesthrough a bottom-up approach. One of these strategies employs moleculesendowed with self-recognizing motifs at the edges, which can undergoeither cyclization-stacking or folding-polymerizationprocesses that lead to tubular architectures. Which of these self-assemblypathways is ultimately selected by these molecules is, however, oftendifficult to predict and even to evaluate experimentally. We showhere a unique example of two structurally related molecules substitutedwith complementary nucleobases at the edges (i.e., G:C and A:U) for which the supramolecular pathway takenis determined by chelate cooperativity, that is, by their propensityto assemble in specific cyclic structures through Watson-Crickpairing. Because of chelate cooperativities that differ in severalorders of magnitude, these molecules exhibit distinct supramolecularscenarios prior to their polymerization that generate self-assemblednanotubes with different internal monomer arrangements, either stackedor coiled, which lead at the same time to opposite helicities andchiroptical properties., Funding Agencies|European Research Council (ERC) [279548 PROGRAM-NANO]; MICINN [CTQ2017-84727-P, RED2018-102331-T, PID2020-116921GB-I00]

Misfolding and aggregation of transthyretin (TTR) causeseveralamyloid diseases. Besides being an amyloidogenic protein, TTR hasan affinity for bicyclic small-molecule ligands in its thyroxine (T4)binding site. One class of TTR ligands are trans-stilbenes. The trans-stilbenescaffold is also widely applied for amyloid fibril-specific ligandsused as fluorescence probes and as positron emission tomography tracersfor amyloid detection and diagnosis of amyloidosis. We have shownthat native tetrameric TTR binds to amyloid ligands based on the trans-stilbenescaffold providing a platform for the determination of high-resolutionstructures of these important molecules bound to protein. In thisstudy, we provide spectroscopic evidence of binding and X-ray crystallographicstructure data on tetrameric TTR complex with the fluorescent salicylicacid-based pyrene amyloid ligand (Py1SA), an analogue of the Congored analogue X-34. The ambiguous electron density from the X-ray diffraction,however, did not permit Py1SA placement with enough confidence likelydue to partial ligand occupancy. Instead, the preferred orientationof the Py1SA ligand in the binding pocket was determined by moleculardynamics and umbrella sampling approaches. We find a distinct preferencefor the binding modes with the salicylic acid group pointing intothe pocket and the pyrene moiety outward to the opening of the T4binding site. Our work provides insight into TTR binding mode preferencefor trans-stilbene salicylic acid derivatives as well as a frameworkfor determining structures of TTR-ligand complexes., Funding Agencies|German Research Foundation (DFG) [KO 5423/1-1]; Swedish e-Science Research Centre (SeRC); Swedish Research Council [2018-4343, 2019-04405]; Swedish Brain Foundation [ALZ2019-0004, ALZ2022-0004]; Gustaf V and Drottning Victorias Stiftelse

Biomimetic chiral optoelectronic materials can be utilized in electronic devices, biosensors and artificial enzymes. Herein, this work reports the chiro-optical properties and architectural arrangement of optoelectronic materials generated from self-assembly of initially nonchiral oligothiophene-porphyrin derivatives and random coil synthetic peptides. The photo-physical- and structural properties of the materials were assessed by absorption-, fluorescence- and circular dichroism spectroscopy, as well as dynamic light scattering, scanning electron microscopy and theoretical calculations. The materials display a three-dimensional ordered helical structure and optical activity that are observed due to an induced chirality of the optoelectronic element upon interaction with the peptide. Both these properties are influenced by the chemical composition of the oligothiophene-porphyrin derivative, as well as the peptide sequence. We foresee that our findings will aid in developing self-assembled optoelectronic materials with dynamic architectonical accuracies, as well as offer the possibility to generate the next generation of materials for a variety of bioelectronic applications., Funding Agencies|Swedish Research Council [621-2013-4754, 2016-00748, 2018-4343]; Swedish e-Science Research Centre (SeRC); Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research [FFL15-0026]; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (ERDF/ESF "Nano4Future") [CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000754]; EC Research Innovation Action under the H2020 Programme [HPC-EUROPA3 INFRAIA-2016-1-730897]

A detailed insight about the molecular organization behind spider silk assembly is valuable for the decoding of the unique properties of silk. The recombinant partial spider silk protein 4RepCT contains four poly-alanine/glycine-rich repeats followed by an amphiphilic C-terminal domain and has shown the capacity to self-assemble into fibrils on hydrophobic surfaces. We herein use molecular dynamic simulations to address the structure of 4RepCT and its different parts on hydrophobic versus hydrophilic surfaces. When 4RepCT is placed in a wing arrangement model and periodically repeated on a hydrophobic surface, fi-sheet structures of the poly-alanine repeats are preserved, while the CT part is settled on top, presenting a fibril with a height of similar to 7 nm and a width of similar to 11 nm. Both atomic force microscopy and cryo-electron microscopy imaging support this model as a possible fibril formation on hydrophobic surfaces. These results contribute to the understanding of silk assembly and alignment mechanism onto hydrophobic surfaces.

The eChem project features an e-book published as a web page (10.30746/978-91-988114-0-7), collecting a repository of Jupyter notebooks developed for the dual purpose of explaining and exploring the theory underlying computational chemistry in a highly interactive manner as well as providing a tutorial-based presentation of the complex workflows needed to simulate embedded molecular systems of real biochemical and/or technical interest. For students ranging from beginners to advanced users, the eChem book is well suited for self-directed learning, but workshops led by experienced instructors and targeting student bodies with specific needs and interests can readily be formed from its components. This has been done by using eChem as the base for a workshop directed toward graduate students learning the theory and practices of quantum chemistry, resulting in very positive assessment of the interactive nature of this framework. The members of the eChem team are engaged in both education and research, and as a mirroring activity, we develop the open-source software upon which this e-book is predominantly based. The overarching vision and goal of our work is to provide a science- and education-enabling software platform for quantum molecular modeling on contemporary and future high-performance computing systems, and to document the resulting development and workflows in the eChem book., QC 20230705

We present an implementation for the calculation of molecular response properties using the algebraic-diagrammatic construction (ADC)/intermediate state representation approach. For the second-order ADC model [ADC(2)], a memory-efficient ansatz avoiding the storage of double excitation amplitudes is investigated. We compare the performance of different numerical algorithms for the solution of the underlying response equations for ADC(2) and show that our approach also strongly improves the convergence behavior for the investigated algorithms compared with the standard implementation. All routines are implemented in an open-source Python library., QC 20230404

Misfolding and aggregation of transthyretin (TTR) cause several amyloid diseases. Besides being an amyloidogenic protein, TTR has an affinity for bicyclic small-molecule ligands in its thyroxine (T4) binding site. One class of TTR ligands are trans-stilbenes. The trans-stilbene scaffold is also widely applied for amyloid fibril-specific ligands used as fluorescence probes and as positron emission tomography tracers for amyloid detection and diagnosis of amyloidosis. We have shown that native tetrameric TTR binds to amyloid ligands based on the trans-stilbene scaffold providing a platform for the determination of high-resolution structures of these important molecules bound to protein. In this study, we provide spectroscopic evidence of binding and X-ray crystallographic structure data on tetrameric TTR complex with the fluorescent salicylic acid-based pyrene amyloid ligand (Py1SA), an analogue of the Congo red analogue X-34. The ambiguous electron density from the X-ray diffraction, however, did not permit Py1SA placement with enough confidence likely due to partial ligand occupancy. Instead, the preferred orientation of the Py1SA ligand in the binding pocket was determined by molecular dynamics and umbrella sampling approaches. We find a distinct preference for the binding modes with the salicylic acid group pointing into the pocket and the pyrene moiety outward to the opening of the T4 binding site. Our work provides insight into TTR binding mode preference for trans-stilbene salicylic acid derivatives as well as a framework for determining structures of TTR-ligand complexes.

The desorption of a carbon monoxide molecule from a Ru(0001) surface was studied by means of X-ray Absorption Spectra (XAS) computed with Transition Potential (TP-DFT) and Time Dependent (TD-DFT) DFT methods. By unraveling the evolution of the CO electronic structure upon desorption, we observed that at 2.3 & ANGS; from the surface, the CO molecule has already predominantly gas-phase character. While C 1s XAS is quite insensitive to changes in the C-O bond length, the O 1s excitation is very sensitive with the pi* coming down in energy upon CO bond stretching, which competes with the increase in orbital energy due to the repulsive interaction with the metallic surface. We show in a systematic way that the TP-DFT method can describe the XAS rather well at the endpoints (chemisorbed and gas phase) but is affected by artificial charge transfer and/or incorrect spin treatment in the transition region in cases like CO, where there are low-lying pi* orbitals and large exchange interactions between the core 1s and valence-acceptor pi* orbitals. As an alternative, we demonstrate by comparing with experimental data that a linear response approach using TD-DFT employing common exchange-correlation functionals and finite-size clusters can yield a good description of the spectral evolution of the 1s & RARR; pi* transition with correct spin and gas-to-chemisorbed chemical shifts in good agreement with experiment., QC 20220208

For general exchange-correlation functionals with a dependence on the local spin densities and spin-density gradients, we provide computationally tractable expressions for the tensor-averaged quadratic response functions pertinent to the experimental observables in second-harmonic generation (SHG). We demonstrate how the tensor-averaged quantities can be implemented with reference to a derived minimal number of first- and second-order perturbed Fock matrices. Our consideration has the capability of treating a situation of resonance enhancement as it is based on damped response theory and allows for the evaluation of tensor-averaged resonant-convergent quadratic response functions using only similar to 25% (one-photon off-resonance regions) and similar to 50% (one-photon resonance regions) of the number of auxiliary Fock matrices required when explicitly calculating all the needed individual tensor components. Numerical examples of SHG intensities in the one-photon off-resonance region are provided for a sample of makaluvamine derivatives recognized for their large nonlinear optical responses as well as a benchmark set of small- and medium-sized organic molecules., QC 20230222

Quantum chemistry is a powerful tool. It is now possible to model complex chemical processes even on a laptop getting insights into matter at its fundamental scale. But quantum chemistry is also very complex. Answering a chemical question requires selecting parameters among a wide variety of choices. Choosing a model system, an electronic structure method, a basis set, a set of properties, and a wide array of parameters which can affect the results in small but sometimes meaningful way… It can be a very daunting task, even for veterans of the field. Similarly, for those who wish to get a deeper understanding of a method, going through the pages of equation often riddled with inconsistent notations and formulations is very challenging. And at the end, the link between the equation and the computer implementation found in existing softwares can be vague at best. We believe that a core issue is that humans are not good at learning in abstract terms. We can get very far with a lecture or a textbook, but we will never build as much intuition about how a clock work as by simply breaking one apart and rebuilding it from scratch. This is exactly the aim of this page, allowing a hands-on approach to computational chemistry. Together we will dismantle the black box that a computational chemistry code often seems to be, go through all the cogs and gears, and build back together some of the main computational methods of modern computational chemistry. We will do this by presenting the underlying equations, all expressed with consistent notations, as well as by suggesting a simple python implementation, to really display in action how the theory is implemented into a practical tool. Additionally, we will put these methods in context by showing how they can be used to address concrete chemical questions, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each method and how to best use them to solve practical problems., QC 20220819

We demonstrate that contemporary computational resources allow for accurate theoretical studies of systems matching recent advances in experimental helicene chemistry. Concerned with first-principles calculations of carbohelicenes, our work surpasses CH[12] as the largest system investigated to date and unravels trends in the electronic structure of the low-lying states of the homologous series. Utilizing a highly efficient implementation of linear response algorithms, we present electronic circular dichroism (CD) spectra of carbohelicenes ranging from CH[5] to CH[30] at the level of Kohn-Sham density-functional theory. Our results for a systematic increase in system size show the emergence of new CD bands that subsequently rise to intensities dominating the spectrum. The spectral band progressions exhibit a periodicity directly linked to the number of overlapping layers of conjugation. While our findings rectify the current understanding of the electronic structure of carbohelicenes, they also serve as a general call for caution regarding the extrapolation of trends from small system ranges., QC 20220830

Helicenes are of general interest due to the significant chiral signals in both absorption- and emission-based spectroscopy. Herein, the spectroscopic properties of four recently synthesized azaoxahelicenes are studied using density functional theory methods. The azaoxahelicenes have 7, 9, 10, and 13 units and one to two complete turns of the structure. UV-vis absorption and electronic circular dichroism spectra are determined both in vacuum and in solution using explicit solvation through a combined molecular dynamics/polarizable embedding framework. Additionally, emission and circularly polarized luminescence spectra are determined based on vibronic calculations. The resulting spectra are in good agreement with the experimentally available data, highlighting that both absorption- and emission-based spectra of the systems can be modeled computationally such that reliable predictions can be made for systems that are yet to be synthesized., QC 20230524

Helicenes are of general interest due to the significant chiral signals in both absorption-and emission-based spectroscopy. Herein, the spectroscopic properties of four recently synthesized azaoxahelicenes are studied using density functional theory methods. The azaoxahelicenes have 7, 9, 10, and 13 units and one to two complete turns of the structure. UV-vis absorption and electronic circular dichroism spectra are determined both in vacuum and in solution using explicit solvation through a combined molecular dynamics/polarizable embedding framework. Addition-ally, emission and circularly polarized luminescence spectra are determined based on vibronic calculations. The resulting spectra are in good agreement with the experimentally available data, highlighting that both absorption-and emission-based spectra of the systems can be modeled computationally such that reliable predictions can be made for systems that are yet to be synthesized.

Anionic pentameric thiophene acetates can be used for fluorescence detection and diagnosis of protein amyloid aggregates. Replacing the central thiophene unit by benzothiadiazole (BTD) or quinoxaline (QX) leads to large emission shifts and basic spectral features have been reported [Chem. Eur. J. 2015, 21, 15133-13137]. Here we present new detailed experimental results of solvent effects, time-resolved fluorescence and examples employing multi-photon microscopy and lifetime imaging. Quantum chemical response calculations elucidate how the introduction of the BTD/QX groups changes the electronic states and emissions. The dramatic red-shift follows an increased conjugation and quinoid character of the π-electrons of the thiophene backbone. An efficient charge transfer in the excited states S1 and S2 compared to the all-thiophene analogue makes these more sensitive to the polarity and quenching by the solvent. Taken together, the results guide in the interpretation of images of stained Alzheimer disease brain sections employing advanced fluorescence microscopy and lifetime imaging, and can aid in optimizing future fluorescent ligand development., QC 20210309

The performance of several standard and popular approaches for calculating X-ray absorption spectra at the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen K-edges of 40 primarily organic molecules up to the size of guanine has been evaluated, focusing on the low-energy and intense 1s → π* transitions. Using results obtained with CVS-ADC(2)-x and fc-CVS-EOM-CCSD as benchmark references, we investigate the performance of CC2, ADC(2), ADC(3/2), and commonly adopted density functional theory (DFT)-based approaches. Here, focus is on precision rather than on accuracy of transition energies and intensities-in other words, we target relative energies and intensities and the spread thereof, rather than absolute values. The use of exchange-correlation functionals tailored for time-dependent DFT calculations of core excitations leads to error spreads similar to those seen for more standard functionals, despite yielding superior absolute energies. Long-range corrected functionals are shown to perform particularly well compared to our reference data, showing error spreads in energy and intensity of 0.2-0.3 eV and ∼10%, respectively, as compared to 0.3-0.6 eV and ∼20% for a typical pure hybrid. In comparing intensities, state mixing can complicate matters, and techniques to avoid this issue are discussed. Furthermore, the influence of basis sets in high-level ab initio calculations is investigated, showing that reasonably accurate results are obtained with the use of 6-311++G**. We name this benchmark suite as XABOOM (X-ray absorption benchmark of organic molecules) and provide molecular structures and ground-state self-consistent field energies and spectroscopic data. We believe that it provides a good assessment of electronic structure theory methods for calculating X-ray absorption spectra and will become useful for future developments in this field.

The bi-thiophene-vinylene-benzothiazole (bTVBT4) ligand developed for Alzheimers disease (AD)-specific detection of amyloid tau has been studied by a combination of several theoretical methods and experimental spectroscopies. With reference to the cryo-EM tau structure of the tau protofilament (Nature 2017, 547, 185), a periodic model system of the fibril was created, and the interactions between this fibril and bTVBT4 were studied with nonbiased molecular dynamics simulations. Several binding sites and binding modes were identified and analyzed, and the results for the most prevailing fibril site and ligand modes are presented. A key validation of the simulation work is provided by the favorable comparison of the theoretical and experimental absorption spectra of bTVBT4 in solution and bound to the protein. It is conclusively shown that the ligand-protein binding occurs at the hydrophobic pocket defined by the residues Ile360, Thr361, and His362. This binding site is not accessible in the Picks disease (PiD) fold, and fluorescence imaging of bTVBT4-stained brain tissue samples from patients diagnosed with AD and PiD provides strong support for the proposed tau binding site., Funding Agencies|European CommissionEuropean CommissionEuropean Commission Joint Research Centre [765739]; Swedish Research CouncilSwedish Research CouncilEuropean Commission [2018-4343, 2016-07213]; Swedish e-Science Research Centre (SeRC); German Research FoundationGerman Research Foundation (DFG) [KO 5423/1-1]; U.S. National Institutes of HealthUnited States Department of Health & Human ServicesNational Institutes of Health (NIH) - USA [UO1NS110437]

A theoretical and experimental study of the gas phase and liquid acetic acid based on resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) spectroscopy is presented. We combine and compare different levels of theory for an isolated molecule for a comprehensive analysis, including electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom. The excitation energy scan over the oxygen K-edge absorption reveals nuclear dynamic effects in the core-excited and final electronic states. The theoretical simulations for the monomer and two different forms of the dimer are compared against high-resolution experimental data for pure liquid acetic acid. We show that the theoretical model based on a dimer describes the hydrogen bond formation in the liquid phase well and that this bond formation sufficiently alters the RIXS spectra, allowing us to trace these effects directly from the experiment. Multimode vibrational dynamics is accounted for in our simulations by using a hybrid time-dependent stationary approach for the quantum nuclear wave packet simulations, showing the important role it plays in RIXS.

The Gator program has been developed for computational spectroscopy and calculations of molecular properties using real and complex propagators at the correlated level of wave function theory. Currently, the focus lies on methods based on the algebraic diagrammatic construction (ADC) scheme up to the third order of perturbation theory. An auxiliary Fock matrix-driven implementation of the second-order ADC method for excitation energies has been realized with an underlying hybrid MPI/OpenMP parallelization scheme suitable for execution in high-performance computing cluster environments. With a modular and object-oriented program structure written in a Python/C++ layered fashion, Gator additionally enables time-efficient prototyping of novel scientific approaches, as well as interactive notebook-driven training of students in quantum chemistry. This article is categorized under: Computer and Information Science > Computer Algorithms and Programming Electronic Structure Theory > Ab Initio Electronic Structure Methods Software > Quantum Chemistry., QC 20220118

Excited-state rotatory strengths are reported for the first time at a correlated ab initio level, here with the algebraic diagrammatic construction scheme of the polarization propagator up to the third order. To demonstrate the capabilities of this computational approach, the gas phase S-1 electronic circular dichroism spectra of the bicyclic ketones (1R)-camphor, (1R)-norcamphor, and (1R)-fenchone have been calculated at the ADC(3) level of theory. Furthermore, the solution excited-state spectra of the energetically lowest conformer of R-(+)-1,1'-bi(2-naphthol) have been computed with inclusion of a polarizable continuum model at the ADC(2) level of theory., QC 20210720

Expressions for analytical molecular gradients of core-excited states have been derived and implemented for the hierarchy of algebraic diagrammatic construction (ADC) methods up to extended second-order within the core-valence separation (CVS) approximation. We illustrate the use of CVS-ADC gradients by determining relaxed core-excited state potential energy surfaces and optimized geometries for water, formic acid, and benzene. For water, our results show that in the dissociative lowest core-excited state, a linear configuration is preferred. For formic acid, we find that the O K-edge lowest core-excited state is non-planar, a fact that is not captured by the equivalent core approximation where the core-excited atom with its hole is replaced by the "Z + 1" neighboring atom in the periodic table. For benzene, the core-excited state gradients are presented along the Jahn-Teller distorted geometry of the 1s -> pi* excited state. Our development may pave a new path to studying the dynamics of molecules in their core-excited states., QC 20210916

The performance of several standard and popular approaches for calculating X-ray absorption spectra at the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen K-edges of 40 primarily organic molecules up to the size of guanine has been evaluated, focusing on the low-energy and intense 1s -> pi* transitions. Using results obtained with CVS-ADC(2)-x and fc-CVS-EOM-CCSD as benchmark references, we investigate the performance of CC2, ADC(2), ADC(3/2), and commonly adopted density functional theory (DFT)-based approaches. Here, focus is on precision rather than on accuracy of transition energies and intensities-in other words, we target relative energies and intensities and the spread thereof, rather than absolute values. The use of exchange-correlation functionals tailored for time-dependent DFT calculations of core excitations leads to error spreads similar to those seen for more standard functionals, despite yielding superior absolute energies. Long-range corrected functionals are shown to perform particularly well compared to our reference data, showing error spreads in energy and intensity of 0.2-0.3 eV and similar to 10%, respectively, as compared to 0.3-0.6 eV and similar to 20% for a typical pure hybrid. In comparing intensities, state mixing can complicate matters, and techniques to avoid this issue are discussed. Furthermore, the influence of basis sets in high-level ab initio calculations is investigated, showing that reasonably accurate results are obtained with the use of 6-311++G**. We name this benchmark suite as XABOOM (X-ray absorption benchmark of organic molecules) and provide molecular structures and ground-state self-consistent field energies and spectroscopic data. We believe that it provides a good assessment of electronic structure theory methods for calculating X-ray absorption spectra and will become useful for future developments in this field., QC 20210505

Quenching of vibrational excitations in resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) spectra of liquid acetic acid is observed. At the oxygen core resonance associated with localized excitations at the O-H bond, the spectra lack the typical progression of vibrational excitations observed in RIXS spectra of comparable systems. We interpret this phenomenon as due to strong rehybridization of the unoccupied molecular orbitals as a result of hydrogen bonding, which however cannot be observed in x-ray absorption but only by means of RIXS. This allows us to address the molecular structure of the liquid, and to determine a lower limit for the average molecular chain length.

Expressions for the calculation of rotatory strengths using the algebraic diagrammatic construction (ADC) scheme of the polarization propagator in both length and velocity gauges have been implemented. This enables the simulation of electronic circular dichroism (ECD) spectra at the ADC level up to third order of perturbation theory. The ADC(n) methods produce rotatory strengths of comparable accuracy to those obtained with coupled cluster methods of corresponding approximation levels, as evaluated for methyloxirane, methylthiirane, dimethyloxirane, dimethylthiirane, hydrogen peroxide, and dihydrogen disulfide. ECD spectra of (1R)-camphor, (1R)-norcamphor, and (1R)-fenchone computed at the third order ADC(3) level of theory are shown to agree very favorably with experimental gas phase spectra, demonstrating the usefulness of ADC for the calculation of chiro-optical properties of organic molecules. ADC(2) in combination with the polarizable continuum model is shown to successfully reproduce the ECD spectrum of the L-epinephrine enantiomer in water, further demonstrating the applicability of this approach., QC 20210415

While the anomalous non-additive size-dependencies of static dipole polarizabilities and van der Waals C-6 dispersion coefficients of carbon fullerenes are well established, the widespread reported scalings for the latter (ranging from N-2.2 to N-2.8) call for a comprehensive first-principles investigation. With a highly efficient implementation of the linear complex polarization propagator, we have performed Hartree-Fock and Kohn-Sham density functional theory calculations of the frequency-dependent polarizabilities for fullerenes consisting of up to 540 carbon atoms. Our results for the static polarizabilities and C-6 coefficients show scalings of N-1.2 and N-2.2, respectively, thereby deviating significantly from the previously reported values obtained with the use of semi-classical/empirical methods. Arguably, our reported values are the most accurate to date as they represent the first ab initio or first-principles treatment of fullerenes up to a convincing system size., QC 20210412

Within the self-consistent field approximation, computationally tractable expressions for the isotropic second-order hyperpolarizability have been derived and implemented for the calculation of two-photon absorption cross sections. The novel tensor average formulation presented in this work allows for the evaluation of isotropic damped cubic response functions using only similar to 3.3% (one-photon off-resonance regions) and similar to 10% (one-photon resonance regions) of the number of auxiliary Fock matrices required when explicitly calculating all the needed individual tensor components. Numerical examples of the two-photon absorption cross section in the one-photon off-resonance and resonance regions are provided for alanine-tryptophan and 2,5-dibromo-1,4-bis(2-(4-diphenylaminophenyl)vinyl)-benzene. Furthermore, a benchmark set of 22 additional small- and medium-sized organic molecules is considered. In all these calculations, a quantitative assessment is made of the reduced and approximate forms of the cubic response function in the one-photon off-resonance regions and results demonstrate a relative error of less than similar to 5% when using the reduced expression as compared to the full form of the isotropic cubic response function., QC 20210215

The synthesis, structures, and properties of [4]cyclonaphthodithiophene diimides ([4]C-NDTIs) are described. NDTIs as important n-type building blocks were catenated in the alpha-positions of thiophene rings via an unusual electrochemical-oxidation-promoted macrocyclization route. The thiophene-thiophene junction in [4]C-NDTIs results in an ideal pillar shape. This interesting topology, along with appealing electronic and optical properties inherited from the NDTI units, endows the [4]C-NDTIs with both near-infrared (NIR) light absorptions, strong excitonic coupling, and tight encapsulation of C-60. Stable orientations of the NDTI units in the nanopillars lead to stable inherent chirality, which enables detailed circular dichroism studies on the impact of isomeric structures on pi-conjugation. Remarkably, the [4]C-NDTIs maintain the strong pi-pi stacking abilities of NDTI units and thus adopt two-dimensional (2D) lattice arrays at the molecular level. These nanopillar molecules have great potential to mimic natural photosynthetic systems for the development of multifunctional organic materials., Funding Agencies|National Natural Science Foundation of ChinaNational Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [22071208, 21772165, 21772162]; Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of ChinaNational Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [21521004]; Youth Innovation foundation of Xiamen [3502Z20206058]; Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS)Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique - FNRS [4532.16, 30650939]; Swedish e-Science Research Center (SeRC); Swedish Research CouncilSwedish Research CouncilEuropean Commission [2018-4343]; European CommissionEuropean CommissionEuropean Commission Joint Research Centre [765739]; Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC)

Control over the photophysical properties and molecular organization of pi-conjugated oligothiophenes is essential to their use in organic electronics. Herein we synthesized and characterized a variety of anionic pentameric oligothiophenes with different substitution patterns of L- or D-tyrosine at distinct positions along the thiophene backbone. Spectroscopic, microscopic, and theoretical studies of L- or D-tyrosine substituted pentameric oligothiophene conjugates revealed the formation of optically active pi-stacked self-assembled aggregates under acid conditions. The distinct photophysical characteristics, as well as the supramolecular structures of the assemblies, were highly influenced by the positioning of the L- or D-tyrosine moieties along the thiophene backbone. Overall, the obtained results clearly demonstrate how fundamental changes in the position of the enantiomeric side-chain functionalities greatly affect the optical properties as well as the architecture of the self-assembled supramolecular structures., QC 20210202

We present the derivation and implementation of complex, frequency-dependent polarizabilities for excited states using the algebraic-diagrammatic construction for the polarization propagator (ADC) and its intermediate state representation. Based on the complex polarizability, we evaluate C-6 dispersion coefficients for excited states. The methodology is implemented up to third order in perturbation theory in the Python-driven adcc toolkit for the development and application of ADC methods. We exemplify the approach using illustrative model systems and compare it to results from other ab initio methods and from experiments., QC 20201019

The Dalton Project provides a uniform platform access to the underlying full-fledged quantum chemistry codes Dalton and LSDalton as well as the PyFraME package for automatized fragmentation and parameterization of complex molecular environments. The platform is written in Python and defines a means for library communication and interaction. Intermediate data such as integrals are exposed to the platform and made accessible to the user in the form of NumPy arrays, and the resulting data are extracted, analyzed, and visualized. Complex computational protocols that may, for instance, arise due to a need for environment fragmentation and configuration-space sampling of biochemical systems are readily assisted by the platform. The platform is designed to host additional software libraries and will serve as a hub for future modular software development efforts in the distributed Dalton community., QC 20200702

Excited-state intramolecular hydrogen transfer (ESIHT) is a fundamental reaction relevant to chemistry and biology. Malonaldehyde is the simplest example of ESIHT, yet only little is known experimentally about its excited-state dynamics. Several competing relaxation pathways have been proposed, including internal conversion mediated by ESIHT and C & xe001;C torsional motion as well as intersystem crossing. We perform an in silico transient X-ray absorption spectroscopy (TRXAS) experiment at the oxygen K-edge to investigate its potential to monitor the proposed ultrafast decay pathways in malonaldehyde upon photoexcitation to its bright S-2(pi pi*) state. We employ both restricted active space perturbation theory and algebraic-diagrammatic construction for the polarization propagator along interpolated reaction coordinates as well as representative trajectories from ab initio multiple spawning simulations to compute the TRXAS signals from the lowest valence states. Our study suggests that oxygen K-edge TRXAS can distinctly fingerprint the passage through the H-transfer intersection and the concomitant population transfer to the S-1(n pi*) state. Potential intersystem crossing to T-1(pi pi*) is detectable from reappearance of the double pre-edge signature and reversed intensities. Moreover, the torsional deactivation pathway induces transient charge redistribution from the enol side towards the central C-atom and manifests itself as substantial shifts of the pre-edge features. Given the continuous advances in X-ray light sources, our study proposes an experimental route to disentangle ultrafast excited-state decay channels in this prototypical ESIHT system and provides a pathway-specific mapping of the TRXAS signal to facilitate the interpretation of future experiments., QC 20200626

The binding pocket proposed by Konig et al. [Chem. Commun. 2018, 54, 3030-3033] for the biomarker pentameric formyl thiophene acetic acid (p-FTAA) in the fibrillar structure of amyloid-beta(1-42) has been put to the test by the comparison of theoretical and experimental optical absorption and fluorescence spectra obtained in a water environment and inside the protein scaffold. The optical absorption/emission properties of this luminescent conjugated oligothiophene were studied by means of classical force field molecular dynamics simulations to account for the sampling of configuration space in conjunction with polarizable embedding time-dependent density functional theory calculations of spectra. The nuclear motions of residues in the beta-sheet were found to be modest, and the time dependence of embedding parameters was shown to be negligible so that a time-independent parameter set could be derived and used for all 300 snapshots considered in the spectrum averaging. In regard to linear absorption spectra, the calculated red shift due to protein binding for the dominant S-1 <- S-0 transition in p-FTAA was found to be equal to 23 nm (0.17 eV), which is in excellent agreement with the corresponding experimental result of 18 nm and taken as corroborating evidence for having correctly identified the binding pocket of p-FTAA in the amyloid. The underlying mechanisms for the calculated red shift were disentangled, and it is shown that some 20 nm (0.15 eV) of the total 23 nm (0.17 eV) is associated with increased planarity of p-FTAA in the binding pocket, whereas a mere 3 nm (0.02 eV) is associated with changes in the environment. In regard to emission spectra, we demonstrate that intersystem crossing from the excited S-1 state to the triplet manifold of states is a less likely event for p-FTAA in the binding pocket as compared to in the aqueous solution, and we thereby partly explain the much higher quantum yield of fluorescence for the more rigid p-FTAA in the bindin, QC 20200311

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), School of Environment and Sc, Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology, Protected areas such as national parks provide many cultural ecosystem services, including opportunities for tourism and recreation. Understanding patterns of visitation to national parks is important socially, environmentally and economically, as is public discourse about the parks. With the rapid increase in the use of social media there is an enormous volume of publicly available spatial data about national parks posted online, but what are the benefits and limitations of this still novel source of information for research and park management? Publicly available spatial data includes global positioning system (GPS) route data posted on social media platforms by mountain bikers, walkers and runners, as well as more general geographic information embedded in texts on microblogging platforms such as Twitter. This thesis examines how both of these types of spatial social media data can be used for monitoring visitation and discourse about national parks at a range of spatial scales from single parks to global assessments. Firstly, the thesis compared how walkers, runners and mountain bikers use a series of connected urban national parks and reserves close to the city of Brisbane, Australia, using GPS route data from the social media platform MapMyFitness (Chapter 2). Route data was correlated with trail counter data, indicating that it could be used as a surrogate for monitoring within and among parks, and may, in some cases, give more reliable data particularly for mountain biking. Clear differences were found in how the parks and reserves were used for the three activities with mountain bikers travelling further and using more of the parks than walkers and runners. Also, mountain bikers and walkers preferred to visit on weekends, while runners use the parks more consistently throughout the week. The results highlighted how route data complements and expands on other visitor data including providing important spatial and temporal data to assist in managing issues su

The fabrication, molecular structure, and spectroscopy of a stable cholesteric liquid crystal platinum acetylide glass obtained from trans-Pt(PEt3)(2)(C(sic)C-C6H5-C(sic)N)(C(sic)C-C6H5-COO-Cholesterol), are described and designated as PE1-CN-Chol. Polarized optical microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and wide-angle X-ray scattering experiments show room temperature glassy/crystalline texture with crystal formation upon heating to 165 degrees C. Further heating results in conversion to cholesteric phase. Cooling to room temperature leads to the formation of a cholesteric liquid crystal glass. Scanning tunneling microscopy of a PE1-CN-Chol monolayer reveals self-assembly at the solid-liquid interface with an array of two molecules arranged in pairs, oriented head-to-head through the CN groups, giving rise to a lamella arrangement. The lamella structure obtained from molecular dynamics calculations shows a clear phase separation between the conjugated platinum acetylide and the hydrophobic cholesterol moiety with the lamellae separation distance being 4.0 nm. Ultrafast transient absorption and flash photolysis spectra of the glass show intersystem crossing to the triplet state occurring within 100 ps following excitation. The triplet decay time of the film compared to aerated and deoxygenated solutions is consistent with oxygen quenching at the film surface but not within the film. The high chromophore concentration, high glass thermal stability, and long triplet lifetime in air show that these materials have potential as nonlinear absorbing materials., QC 20210915

Protected areas such as national parks provide many cultural ecosystem services, including opportunities for tourism and recreation. Understanding patterns of visitation to national parks is important socially, environmentally and economically, as is public discourse about the parks. With the rapid increase in the use of social media there is an enormous volume of publicly available spatial data about national parks posted online, but what are the benefits and limitations of this still novel source of information for research and park management? Publicly available spatial data includes global positioning system (GPS) route data posted on social media platforms by mountain bikers, walkers and runners, as well as more general geographic information embedded in texts on microblogging platforms such as Twitter. This thesis examines how both of these types of spatial social media data can be used for monitoring visitation and discourse about national parks at a range of spatial scales from single parks to global assessments. Firstly, the thesis compared how walkers, runners and mountain bikers use a series of connected urban national parks and reserves close to the city of Brisbane, Australia, using GPS route data from the social media platform MapMyFitness (Chapter 2). Route data was correlated with trail counter data, indicating that it could be used as a surrogate for monitoring within and among parks, and may, in some cases, give more reliable data particularly for mountain biking. Clear differences were found in how the parks and reserves were used for the three activities with mountain bikers travelling further and using more of the parks than walkers and runners. Also, mountain bikers and walkers preferred to visit on weekends, while runners use the parks more consistently throughout the week. The results highlighted how route data complements and expands on other visitor data including providing important spatial and temporal data to assist in managing issues su, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), School of Environment and Sc, Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology, Full Text

The Dalton Project provides a uniform platform access to the underlying full-fledged quantum chemistry codes Dalton and LSDalton as well as the PyFraME package for automatized fragmentation and parameterization of complex molecular environments. The platform is written in Python and defines a means for library communication and interaction. Intermediate data such as integrals are exposed to the platform and made accessible to the user in the form of NumPy arrays, and the resulting data are extracted, analyzed, and visualized. Complex computational protocols that may, for instance, arise due to a need for environment fragmentation and configuration-space sampling of biochemical systems are readily assisted by the platform. The platform is designed to host additional software libraries and will serve as a hub for future modular software development efforts in the distributed Dalton community.

A methodology implemented to compute photoionization cross sections beyond the electric dipole approximation using Gaussian type orbitals for the initial state and plane waves for the final state is applied to molecules of various sizes. The molecular photoionization cross sections computed for valence molecular orbitals as a function of photon energy present oscillations due to the wave-like nature of both the outgoing photoelectron and of the incoming photon. These oscillations are damped by rotational and vibrational averaging or by performing a k-point summation for the solid state case. For core orbitals, the corrections introduced by going beyond the electric dipole approximation are comparable to the atomic case. For valence orbitals, nondipole corrections to the total photoinization cross sections can reach up to 20% at photon energies above 1 keV. The corrections to the differential cross sections calculated at the magic angle are larger, reaching values between 30% and 50% for all molecules included. Our findings demonstrate that photoelectron spectroscopy, especially angle-resolved, on, e.g., molecules and clusters on surfaces, using high photon energies, must be accompanied by theories that go beyond the electric dipole approximation.

We report on a combined theoretical and experimental study of core-excitation spectra of gas and liquid phase methanol as obtained with the use of X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS). The electronic transitions are studied with computational methods that include strict and extended second-order algebraic diagrammatic construction [ADC(2) and ADC(2)-x], restricted active space second-order perturbation theory, and time-dependent density functional theory-providing a complete assignment of the near oxygen K-edge XAS. We show that multimode nuclear dynamics is of crucial importance for explaining the available experimental XAS and RIXS spectra. The multimode nuclear motion was considered in a recently developed "mixed representation" where dissociative states and highly excited vibrational modes are accurately treated with a time-dependent wave packet technique, while the remaining active vibrational modes are described using Franck-Condon amplitudes. Particular attention is paid to the polarization dependence of RIXS and the effects of the isotopic substitution on the RIXS profile in the case of dissociative core-excited states. Our approach predicts the splitting of the 2a RIXS peak to be due to an interplay between molecular and pseudo-atomic features arising in the course of transitions between dissociative core- and valence-excited states. The dynamical nature of the splitting of the 2a peak in RIXS of liquid methanol near pre-edge core excitation is shown. The theoretical results are in good agreement with our liquid phase measurements and gas phase experimental data available from the literature. (C) 2019 Author(s).

A methodology is developed to compute photoionization cross sections beyond the electric dipole approximation from response theory, using Gaussian type orbitals and plane waves for the initial and final states, respectively. The methodology is applied to compute photoionization cross sections of atoms and ions from the first four rows of the periodic table. Analyzing the error due to the plane wave description of the photoelectron, we find kinetic energy and concomitant photon energy thresholds above which the plane wave approximation becomes applicable. The correction introduced by going beyond the electric dipole approximation increases with photon energy and depends on the spatial extension of the initial state. In general, the corrections are below 10% for most elements, at a photon energy reaching up to 12 keV.

QC 20190904

An open-source program named VeloxChem has been developed for the calculation of electronic real and complex linear response functions at the levels of Hartree–Fock and Kohn–Sham density functional theories. With an object-oriented program structure written in a Python/C++ layered fashion, VeloxChem enables time-efficient prototyping of novel scientific approaches without sacrificing computational efficiency, so that molecular systems involving up to and beyond 500 second-row atoms (or some 10,000 contracted and in part diffuse Gaussian basis functions) can be routinely addressed. In addition, VeloxChem is equipped with a polarizable embedding scheme for the treatment of the classical electrostatic interactions with an environment that in turn is modeled by atomic site charges and polarizabilities. The underlying hybrid message passing interface (MPI)/open multiprocessing (OpenMP) parallelization scheme makes VeloxChem suitable for execution in high-performance computing cluster environments, showing even slightly beyond linear scaling for the Fock matrix construction with use of up to 16,384 central processing unit (CPU) cores. An efficient—with respect to convergence rate and overall computational cost—multifrequency/gradient complex linear response equation solver enables calculations not only of conventional spectra, such as visible/ultraviolet/X-ray electronic absorption and circular dichroism spectra, but also time-resolved linear response signals as due to ultra-short weak laser pulses. VeloxChem distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 (LGPLv2.1) license and made available for download from the homepage https://veloxchem.org. This article is categorized under: Software > Quantum Chemistry Electronic Structure Theory > Density Functional Theory Theoretical and Physical Chemistry > Spectroscopy., QC 20200429

The modification of the algebraic-diagrammatic construction (ADC) scheme for the polarization propagator using ground-state coupled-cluster (CC) instead of Møller-Plesset (MP) amplitudes, referred to as CC-ADC, is extended to the calculation of molecular properties, in particular, dipole polarizabilities. Furthermore, in addition to CC with double excitations (CCD), CC with single and double excitations (CCSD) amplitudes can be used, also in the second-order transition moments of the ADC(3/2) method. In the second-order CC-ADC(2) variants, the MP correlation coefficients occurring in ADC are replaced by either CCD or CCSD amplitudes, while in the F/CC-ADC(2) and F/CC-ADC(3/2) variants, they are replaced only in the second-order modified transition moments. These newly implemented variants are used to calculate the static dipole polarizability of several small- to medium-sized molecules, and the results are compared to the ones obtained by full configuration interaction or experiment. It is shown that the results are consistently improved by the use of CC amplitudes, in particular, for aromatic systems such as benzene or pyridine, which have proven to be difficult cases for standard ADC approaches. In this case, the second-order CC-ADC(2) and F/CC-ADC(2) variants yield significantly better results than the standard third-order ADC(3/2) method, at a computational cost amounting to only about 1% of the latter., QC 20190715

Binding modes between various DNA sequences and stereoisomeric rotamers of two dithienylethene derivatives (DTE1 and DTE2) representing photochromic switches were investigated in terms of molecular dynamics simulations and characterized by their binding energies. The result shows that minor groove binding (MiGB) is found to be the most robust binding mode between DNA and DTE (either DTE1 or DTE2). Due to steric hindrance, two DTE derivatives that are rotatable isomers exhibit distinct binding behaviors to DNA, and thus DNA has significant enantioselectivity for DTE derivatives. Moreover, the selectivity of the DTE derivative to the binding site of the DNA molecule is directly related to the base pair constitution, providing accurate theoretical guidance for precision medicine by chiral drugs based on this molecule., QC 20191031

We report on accurate and efficient calculations of vibrationally resolved emission spectra for oligothiophenes from anharmonic vibrational configuration interaction wave-function calculations in reduced vibrational spaces. These reduced spaces are chosen based on the independent mode displaced harmonic oscillator model. Good agreement with experiment is obtained for all-trans oligothiophenes with two to five rings also when employing only a few active modes. Vibrational modes incorporating inter-ring carbon-carbon stretches and a ring breathing mode are found to be the main players in the vibrational progression for the emission from the first excited electronic state for all investigated oligothiophene derivatives. The presented framework is here illustrated for oligothiophenes, but we have made no underlying system-dependent assumptions and believe it to become a valuable tool for the rational design of fluorescence biomarkers., QC 20190902

Despite being very well established in the field of electro-optics, ferroelectric liquid crystals so far lacked interest from a ferroelectric device perspective due to a typically high operating temperature, a modest remnant polarization and/or poor polarization retention. Here, we experimentally demonstrate how simple structural modification of a prototypical ferroelectric liquid-crystal benzene-1,3,5-trisamide (BTA) - introduction of branched-tail substituents - results in materials with a wide operating temperature range and a data retention time of more than 10 years in thin-film solution-processed capacitor devices at room temperature. The observed differences between linear- and branched-tail compounds are analyzed using density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We conclude that morphological factors like improved packing quality and reduced disorder, rather than electrostatic interactions or intra/inter-columnar steric hindrance, underlay the superior properties of the branched-tailed BTAs. Synergistic effects upon blending of compounds with branched and linear side-chains can be used to further improve the materials' characteristics., QC 20190325