Franck-Condon factor, electron transfer

One expects the impact of the electronic matrix element, eqs 1 and 2, on electron-transfer reactions to be manifested in a variation in the reaction rate constant with (1) donor-acceptor separation (2) changes in spin multiplicity between reactants and products (3) differences in donor and acceptor orbital symmetry etc. However, simple electron-transfer reactions tend to be dominated by Franck-Condon factors over most of the normally accessible temperature range. Even for outer-... 

Distance The affects of electron donor-acceptor distance on reaction rate arises because electron transfer, like any reaction, requires the wavefunctions of the reactants to mix (i.e. orbital overlap must occur). Unlike atom transfer, the relatively weak overlap which can occur at long distances (> 10 A) may still be sufficient to allow reaction at significant rates. On the basis of work with both proteins and models, it is now generally accepted that donor-acceptor electronic coupling, and thus electron transfer rates, decrease exponentially with distance kji Ve, exp . FCF where v i is the frequency of the mode which promotes reaction (previously estimated between 10 -10 s )FCF is a Franck Condon Factor explained below, and p is empirically estimated to range from 0.8-1.2 with a value of p 0.9 A most common for proteins. 

In the previous section, we alluded to the Franck Condon factors (FCF) in controlling electron transfer rates. For this topic, detailed reviews of theory and experiment are provided elsewhere. In sum, it is now well known that the reaction free energy required to transfer charge can be reduced by the reaction free energy, AG°, as summarized in the famous Marcus equation AG = (AG° — where X, the reorganization energy, is related to the degree of... 

In a semiclassical picture, the rate kda of nonadiabatic charge transfer between a donor d and an acceptor a is determined by the electronic coupling matrix element Vda and the thermally weighted Franck-Condon factor (f C) [25, 26] ... 

A number of techniques have been used previously for the study of state-selected ion-molecule reactions. In particular, the use of resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) [21] and threshold photoelectron photoion coincidence (TPEPICO) [22] has allowed the detailed study of effects of vibrational state selection of ions on reaction cross sections. Neither of these methods, however, are intrinsically capable of complete selection of the rotational states of the molecular ions. The TPEPICO technique or related methods do not have sufficient electron energy resolution to achieve this, while REMPI methods are dependent on the selection rules for angular momentum transfer when a well-selected intermediate rotational state is ionized in the most favorable cases only a partial selection of a few ionic rotational states is achieved [23], There can also be problems in REMPI state-selective experiments with vibrational contamination, because the vibrational selectivity is dependent on a combination of energetic restrictions and Franck-Condon factors. 

Due to the complicated kinetics for both processes no attempt was made in ref. 83 to treat the data quantitatively. It was estimated, however, that the back electron transfer reaction is slower by about 3 orders of magnitude than that of the forward electron transfer. At the same time, the free energy change for the forward reaction (AG° = - 0.4 eV) is smaller than that for the back electron transfer (AG° = — 1.7 eV). This decrease of the reaction rate at large exothermicity was attributed [83] to the decrease of the Franck-Condon factors with increasing J in the situation when J > Er (see Chap. 3, Sect. 5). 

In Equation 6.88, K0 is the equilibrium constant for the formation of the collision complex, (V) 2 is the electronic coupling, and F is the Franck-Condon factor. In contrast to the radiationless relaxation, the energy transfer process cannot be rationalized only in the limit of the strong and weak coupling limits shown in Figure 6.16. 

Again, //()" is the electronic coupling between the two excited states intercon-verted by the energy transfer process and FCWDen is an appropriate Franck-Condon factor. 

The theory for this intermolecular electron transfer reaction can be approached on a microscopic quantum mechanical level, as suggested above, based on a molecular orbital (filled and virtual) approach for both donor (solute) and acceptor (solvent) molecules. If the two sets of molecular orbitals can be in resonance and can physically overlap for a given cluster geometry, then the electron transfer is relatively efficient. In the cases discussed above, a barrier to electron transfer clearly exists, but the overall reaction in certainly exothermic. The barrier must be coupled to a nuclear motion and, thus, Franck-Condon factors for the electron transfer process must be small. This interaction should be modeled by Marcus inverted region electron transfer theory and is well described in the literature (Closs and Miller 1988 Kang et al. 1990 Kim and Hynes 1990a,b Marcus and Sutin 1985 McLendon 1988 Minaga et al. 1991 Sutin 1986). 

The carry-home messages are as follows (1) The difference (Id — Aa) is important and, to first order, should be minimized (2) in a device and under bias, (Ip — Aa) becomes smaller than in the gas phase (3) if (fD — Aa) is too large, then the rate of electron transfer may become unacceptably slow because of the Franck-Condon factor becoming small It is a waste of time to make super-small but super-slow unimolecular devices. 

In the classical limit when the thermal energy K T is much higher than the energy ha of the vibrational frequencies that are coupled to the electron transfer reaction, the Franck-Condon factor can be expressed in terms of AG and X and equation 2 converts to the classical Marcus formula for the electron transfer rate ... 

In certain cases, the classical Marcus formula is not sufficient to explain the observed-dependence of the electron transfer rate on temperature or AG, which could indicate that it is necessary to use a Franck-Condon term in which the contribution of the nuclei is treated in quantum mechanical terms. In this treatment, the Franck-Condon term equals the thermally-weighted sum of the contributions from all possible vibrational states of the reactants, each multiplied by their Franck-Condon factor i.e. the square of the overlap integral of a nuclear wave function of the reactant with the nuclear wave function of the product state that has the same total energy. 

The observations summarized in this subsection demonstrate that the magnitudes of solvational changes and geometrical differences dominate electron-transfer reactivity, and that these contributions to the Franck-Condon factor are readily... 

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