Excited-state potentials

Figure Al.6.26. Stereoscopic view of ground- and excited-state potential energy surfaces for a model collinear ABC system with the masses of HHD. The ground-state surface has a minimum, corresponding to the stable ABC molecule. This minimum is separated by saddle points from two distmct exit chaimels, one leading to AB + C the other to A + BC. The object is to use optical excitation and stimulated emission between the two surfaces to steer the wavepacket selectively out of one of the exit chaimels (reprinted from [54]).

Figure 4. Relaxed triangular plot [68] of the Li3 first-excited state potential energy surface using hyperspherical coordinates. Contours are given by the expression E (eV) =-0.56-1-0.045(n — 1) with n = 2,3,. The dissociation limit indicated by the dense contouring implies...

J G 1994. Extended Electron Distributions Applied to the Molecular Mechanics of Some termolecular Interactions. Journal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design 8 653-668. el A and M Karplus 1972. Calculation of Ground and Excited State Potential Surfaces of anjugated Molecules. 1. Formulation and Parameterisation. Journal of the American Chemical Society 1 5612-5622. 

As an example of such excited state potential energy curves Figure 7.17 shows curves for several excited states and also for the ground state of the short-lived C2 molecule. The ground electron configuration is... 

In the case where r > r" there is, when anharmonicity is taken into account, a relatively steep part of the excited state potential curve above v" = 0, giving a relatively broad... 

The photochemical behavior of butadienes has been closely studied. When these compounds are exposed to light, they move from the ground state to an excited state. This excited state eventually returns to one of the ground state conformations via a process that includes a radiationless decay (i.e., without emitting a photon) from the excited state potential energy surface back to the ground state potential energy surface. 

Vibrationally mediated photodissociation (VMP) can be used to measure the vibrational spectra of small ions, such as V (OCO). Vibrationally mediated photodissociation is a double resonance technique in which a molecule first absorbs an IR photon. Vibrationally excited molecules are then selectively photodissociated following absorption of a second photon in the UV or visible [114—120]. With neutral molecules, VMP experiments are usually used to measure the spectroscopy of regions of the excited-state potential energy surface that are not Franck-Condon accessible from the ground state and to see how different vibrations affect the photodissociation dynamics. In order for VMP to work, there must be some wavelength at which vibrationally excited molecules have an electronic transition and photodissociate, while vibrationally unexcited molecules do not. In practice, this means that the ion has to have a... 

Figure 1. Schematic of the radial cuts of the ground- and excited-state potential energy surfaces at the linear and T-shaped orientations. Transitions of the ground-state, T-shaped complexes access the lowest lying, bound intermolecular level in the excited-state potential also with a rigid T-shaped geometry. Transitions of the linear conformer were previously believed to access the purely repulsive region of the excited-state potential and would thus give rise to a continuum signal. The results reviewed here indicate that transitions of the linear conformer can access bound excited-state levels with intermolecular vibrational excitation.

As we have reviewed here, the linear region is not fully repulsive, and transitions of the ground-state, linear conformer access vibrationally excited intermolecular levels that are delocalized in the angular coordinate. As depicted in Fig. 1, however, the internuclear distance is significantly longer in the excited state at the linear geometry. Consequently, there is favorable Franck-Condon overlap of the linear conformer with the inner-repulsive wall of the excited-state potential. It is therefore possible for the linear Rg XY conformers to be promoted to the continuum of states just above each Rg - - XY B,v ) dissociation limit. 

Casida, M. E., Casida, K. C., Salahub, D. R., 1998, Excited-State Potential Energy Curves from Time-Dependent Density-Functional Theory A Cross Section of Formaldehyde s A Manifold , hit. J. Quant. Chem., 70, 933. 

Figure 11-1. Cartoon of ground and excited state potential energy surfaces, indicating points where nona-diabatic transitions can occur...

Blancafort L (2006) Excited-state potential energy surface for the photophysics of adenine. J Am Chem Soc 128 210-219... 

Generally the first thing to be done in preparation for the photochemical study of a compound is to determine the visible and ultraviolet absorption spectrum of the compound. Besides furnishing information concerning the nature of the excited state potentially involved in the photochemistry (see Section 1.4), the absorption spectrum furnishes information of a more applied nature as to the wavelength range in which the material absorbs and its molar absorptivity e. From this information it is possible to decide what type of light source to use for the irradiation, what solvents can be used to... 

In addition, the results indicated that the efficiency of cis —> trans increased as the initial cis double bond configuration is shifted from the center of the polyenic chain, consistent with the 7j, triplet excited state potential curve that has a very shallow minimum at the 15-cis position compared to the deep minima at the all-trans position. The results strongly suggest that isomerization takes place via the 7j state of the carotenoid even in the case of direct photoexcitation, with their photosensitized process because of the very low intersystem crossing quantum yield, isc ([Pg.246]

Figure 14. The absolute value of the average disrotatory angle as a function of time in femtoseconds. (The disrotatory angle is defined in the upper left inset.) Lower inset A onedimensional cut of the excited-state potential energy surface along the disrotatory and conrotatory coordinates. All other coordinates are kept at their ground-state equilibrium value, and the full and dashed lines correspond to two levels of electronic structure theory (see text for details). (Figure adapted from Ref. 216.)...

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