Dynamics of molecules in strong oscillating electric fields using time-dependent Hartree–Fock theory

Tuning ultrafast time-evolution of photo-induced charge-transfer states: A real-time electronic dynamics study in substituted indenotetracene derivatives

Photo-induced charge transfer (CT) states are pivotal in many technological and biological processes. A deeper knowledge of such states is mandatory for modeling the charge migration dynamics. Real-time time-dependent density functional theory (RT-TD-DFT) electronic dynamics simulations are employed to explicitly observe the electronic density time-evolution upon photo-excitation. Asymmetrically substituted indenotetracene molecules, given their potential application as n-type semiconductors in organic photovoltaic materials, are here investigated. Effects of substituents with different electron-donating characters are analyzed in terms of the overall electronic energy spacing and resulting ultrafast CT dynamics through linear response (LR-)TD-DFT and RT-TD-DFT based approaches. The combination of the computational techniques here employed provided direct access to the electronic density reorganization in time and to its spatial and rational representation in terms of molecular orbital occupation time evolution. Such results can be exploited to design peculiar directional charge dynamics, crucial when photoactive materials are used for light-harvesting applications.

Watching the Interplay between Photoinduced Ultrafast Charge Dynamics and Nuclear Vibrations

Here is presented the ultrafast hole-electron dynamics of photoinduced metal to ligand charge-transfer (MLCT) states in a Ru(II) complex, [Ru(dcbpy)2(NCS)2]4- (dcbpy = 4,4'-dicarboxy-2,2'-bipyridine), a photoactive molecule employed in dye sensitized solar cells. Via cutting-edge computational techniques, a tailored computational protocol is here presented and developed to provide a detailed analysis of the electronic manifold coupled with nuclear vibrations to better understand the nonradiative pathways and the resulting overall dye performances in light-harvesting processes (electron injection). Thus, the effects of different vibrational modes were investigated on both the electronic levels and charge transfer dynamics through a theoretical-computational approach. First, the linear response time-dependent density functional (LR-TDDFT) formalism was employed to characterize excitation energies and spacing among electronic levels (the electronic layouts). Then, to understand the ultrafast (femtosecond) charge dynamics on the molecular scale, we relied on the nonperturbative mean-field quantum electronic dynamics via real-time (RT-) TDDFT. Three vibrational modes were selected, representative for collective nuclear movements that can have a significant influence on the electronic structure: two involving NCS- ligands and one involving dcbpy ligands. As main results, we observed that such MLCT states, under vibrational distortions, are strongly affected and a faster interligand electron transfer mechanism is observed along with an increasing MLCT character of the adiabatic electronic states approaching closer in energy due to the vibrations. Such findings can help both in providing a molecular picture of multidimensional vibro-electronic spectroscopic techniques, used to characterize ultrafast coherent and noncoherent dynamics of complex systems, and to improve dye performances with particular attention to the study of energy or charge transport processes and vibronic couplings.

Size-dependent errors in real-time electron density propagation

Real-time (RT) electron density propagation with time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) or Hartree-Fock (TDHF) is one of the most popular methods to model the charge transfer in molecules and materials. However, both RT-TDHF and RT-TDDFT within the adiabatic approximation are known to produce inaccurate evolution of the electron density away from the ground state in model systems, leading to large errors in charge transfer and erroneous shifting of peaks in absorption spectra. Given the poor performance of these methods with small model systems and the widespread use of the methods with larger molecular and material systems, here we bridge the gap in our understanding of these methods and examine the size-dependence of errors in RT density propagation. We analyze the performance of RT density propagation for systems of increasing size during the application of a continuous resonant field to induce Rabi-like oscillations, during charge-transfer dynamics, and for peak shifting in simulated absorption spectra. We find that the errors in the electron dynamics are indeed size dependent for these phenomena, with the largest system producing the results most aligned with those expected from linear response theory. The results suggest that although the RT-TDHF and RT-TDDFT methods may produce severe errors for model systems, the errors in charge transfer and resonantly driven electron dynamics may be much less significant for more realistic, large-scale molecules and materials.

Understanding Charge Dynamics in Dense Electronic Manifolds in Complex Environments

Photoinduced charge transfer (CT) excited states and their relaxation mechanisms can be highly interdependent on the environment effects and the consequent changes in the electronic density. Providing a molecular interpretation of the ultrafast (subpicosecond) interplay between initial photoexcited states in such dense electronic manifolds in condensed phase is crucial for improving and understanding such phenomena. Real-time time-dependent density functional theory is here the method of choice to observe the charge density, explicitly propagated in an ultrafast time domain, along with all time-dependent properties that can be easily extracted from it. A designed protocol of analysis for real-time electronic dynamics to be applied to time evolving electronic density related properties to characterize both in time and in space CT dynamics in complex systems is here introduced and validated, proposing easy to be read cross-correlation maps. As case studies to test such tools, we present the photoinduced charge-transfer electronic dynamics of 5-benzyluracil, a mimic of nucleic acid/protein interactions, and the metal-to-ligand charge-transfer electronic dynamics in water solution of [Ru(dcbpy)2(NCS)2]4-, dcbpy = (4,4'-dicarboxy-2,2'-bipyridine), or "N34-", a dye sensitizer for solar cells. Electrostatic and explicit ab initio treatment of solvent molecules have been compared in the latter case, revealing the importance of the accurate modeling of mutual solute-solvent polarization on CT kinetics. We observed that explicit quantum mechanical treatment of solvent slowed down the charge carriers mobilities with respect to the gas-phase. When all water molecules were modeled instead as simpler embedded point charges, the electronic dynamics appeared enhanced, with a reduced hole-electron distance and higher mean velocities due to the close fixed charges and an artificially increased polarization effect. Such analysis tools and the presented case studies can help to unveil the influence of the electronic manifold, as well as of the finite temperature-induced structural distortions and the environment on the ultrafast charge motions.

Environmental Effects with Frozen-Density Embedding in Real-Time Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory Using Localized Basis Functions

Frozen-density embedding (FDE) represents a versatile embedding scheme to describe the environmental effect on electron dynamics in molecular systems. The extension of the general theory of FDE to the real-time time-dependent Kohn-Sham method has previously been presented and implemented in plane waves and periodic boundary conditions [Pavanello, M.; J. Chem. Phys. 2015, 142, 154116]. In the current paper, we extend our recent formulation of the real-time time-dependent Kohn-Sham method based on localized basis set functions and developed within the Psi4NumPy framework to the FDE scheme. The latter has been implemented in its "uncoupled" flavor (in which the time evolution is only carried out for the active subsystem, while the environment subsystems remain at their ground state), using and adapting the FDE implementation already available in the PyEmbed module of the scripting framework PyADF. The implementation was facilitated by the fact that both Psi4NumPy and PyADF, being native Python API, provided an ideal framework of development using the Python advantages in terms of code readability and reusability. We employed this new implementation to investigate the stability of the time-propagation procedure, which is based on an efficient predictor/corrector second-order midpoint Magnus propagator employing an exact diagonalization, in combination with the FDE scheme. We demonstrate that the inclusion of the FDE potential does not introduce any numerical instability in time propagation of the density matrix of the active subsystem, and in the limit of the weak external field, the numerical results for low-lying transition energies are consistent with those obtained using the reference FDE calculations based on the linear-response TDDFT. The method is found to give stable numerical results also in the presence of a strong external field inducing nonlinear effects. Preliminary results are reported for high harmonic generation (HHG) of a water molecule embedded in a small water cluster. The effect of the embedding potential is evident in the HHG spectrum reducing the number of the well-resolved high harmonics at high energy with respect to the free water. This is consistent with a shift toward lower ionization energy passing from an isolated water molecule to a small water cluster. The computational burden for the propagation step increases approximately linearly with the size of the surrounding frozen environment. Furthermore, we have also shown that the updating frequency of the embedding potential may be significantly reduced, much less than one per time step, without jeopardizing the accuracy of the transition energies.

Employing Range Separation on the meta-GGA Rung: New Functional Suitable for Both Covalent and Noncovalent Interactions

We devise a scheme for converting an existing exchange functional into its range-separated hybrid variant. The underlying exchange hole of the Becke-Roussel type has the exact second-order expansion in the interelectron distance. The short-range part of the resulting range-separated exchange energy depends on the kinetic energy density and the Laplacian even if the base functional lacks the dependence on these variables. The most successful practical realization of the scheme, named LC-PBETPSS, combines the range-separated Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) exchange lifted to the hybrid meta-generalized gradient approximation rung and the Tao-Perdew-Staroverov-Scuseria (TPSS) correlation. The value of the range-separation parameter is estimated theoretically and confirmed by empirical optimization. The D3 dispersion correction is recommended for all energy computations employing the presented functional. Numerical tests show remarkably robust performance of the method for noncovalent interaction energies, barrier heights, main-group thermochemistry, and excitation energies.

Time-dependent Dyson orbital theory

Probabilities of single ionization channels or double and multiple simultaneous ionization can be determined from exact master equations for time-dependent Dyson orbitals.

Thermodynamic study of gaseous tin molybdates by high-temperature mass spectrometry

RATIONALE

Molybdenum and tin are components of various construction materials which are often used at high temperature and in an oxidizing atmosphere. Oxides of molybdenum and tin, with their high reactivity, can, in their turn, form a number of gaseous compounds. To predict the possibility of the existence of gaseous associates formed by tin and molybdenum oxides it is important to know their thermodynamic characteristics. Until the present investigation only a few gaseous salts of tin were known.

METHODS

High-temperature Knudsen effusion mass spectrometry was used to determine the partial pressures of vapor species over the SnO(2) -MoO(3) system. The formation enthalpies of gaseous SnMoO(4), Sn(2) MoO(5) and SnMo(2)O(7) were derived. Measurements were performed with a MS-1301 mass spectrometer. Vaporization was carried out using a molybdenum effusion cell containing the samples under study and pure gold as the reference substance. A theoretical study of gaseous tin molybdates was performed by several quantum chemical methods: wave function based explicitly correlated F12 methods and DFT M0(6) methods.

RESULTS

In the temperature range of 1200-1400 K, SnO, Sn(2)O(2), SnMoO(4), Sn(2) MoO(5), SnMo(2)O(7), MoO(3), Mo(2)O(6) and Mo(3)O(9) were found to be the main vapor species over the samples studied. On the basis of the equilibrium constants of gaseous reactions, the standard formation enthalpies of gaseous SnMoO(4) (-699 ± 29 kJ/mol), Sn(2) MoO(5) (-1001 ± 38 kJ/mol) and SnMo(2)O(7) (-1456 ± 60 kJ/mol) at 298 K were determined. Energetically favorable structures were found and vibrational frequencies were evaluated in the harmonic approximation.

CONCLUSIONS

The stability of gaseous species, SnMoO(4), Sn(2) MoO(5) and SnMo(2)O(7), was confirmed by high-temperature mass spectrometry. A number of gas-phase reactions involving tin-containing gaseous salts were studied. The enthalpies of reactions of gaseous tin molybdates were evaluated theoretically and the obtained values are in agreement with those obtained experimentally.

Modeling laser induced molecule excitation using real-time time-dependent density functional theory: application to 5- and 6-benzyluracil

The fully propagated real time-dependent density functional theory method has been applied to study the laser–molecule interaction in 5- and 6-benzyluracil (5BU and 6BU).

Thermal stability and structures of gaseous GeB2O4 and GeMo2O7

The stability of gaseous GeMo₂O₇ and GeB₂O₄ were confirmed by Knudsen effusion mass spectrometry. To get structure parameters of these gaseous salts quantum chemical investigation of molecules was undertaken.

Liouville-von Neumann molecular dynamics

We present a novel first principles molecular dynamics scheme, called Liouville-von Neumann molecular dynamics, based on Liouville-von Neumann equation for density matrices propagation and Magnus expansion of the time-evolution operator. The scheme combines formally accurate quantum propagation of electrons represented via density matrices and a classical propagation of nuclei. The method requires a few iterations per each time step where the Fock operator is formed and von Neumann equation is integrated. The algorithm (a) is free of constraint and fictitious parameters, (b) avoids diagonalization of the Fock operator, and (c) can be used in the case of fractional occupation as in metallic systems. The algorithm is very stable, and has a very good conservation of energy even in cases when a good quality conventional Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics trajectories is difficult to obtain. Test simulations include initial phase of fullerene formation from gaseous C(2) and retinal system.