Franck vertical

The first study, by Ismail et al. [153], used the CASSCF method with a 6-31G basis set and an active space of 14 electrons in 10 orbitals to locate conical intersections and pathways connecting them to the Franck Condon region. Two such conical intersections were identified in that work, the ci2 and ci3, as defined above. In that work the barrier leading to ci2 was calculated to be 10 kcal/mol, too high to make this conical intersection relevant. But the barrier leading to ci3 was found to be much smaller, 3.6 kcal/mol, and it was concluded that ci3 is involved in the dominant decay path. Reaching this intersection requires first a conical intersection between the nn state, which is vertically the Si state, and the non state, which is vertically the S2 state. Merchan and Serrano-Andres followed up this study [140] using a method... 

Electronic transitions in a solute take place very fast, i.e., almost immediately in comparison with the movement of the molecules as a whole and vibrations of atoms in organic molecules. Hence, absorption and fluorescence can be denoted in Fig. 5 by vertical arrows, in accordance with Franck-Condon principle. Both these processes are separated by relaxations, which are intermolecular rearrangements of the solute-solvent system after the excitation. 

FIGURE 4.1 Illustration of adiabatic and vertical ionization potentials. Adiabatic I.P. refers to the energy difference between the lowest quantum states of the molecule and its positive ion. Often, Franck-Condon (vertical) transitions lead to a higher value, the vertical ionization potential. 

Evaluation of the Work Term from Charge Transfer Spectral Data. The intermolecular interaction leading to the precursor complex in Scheme IV is reminiscent of the electron donor-acceptor or EDA complexes formed between electron donors and acceptors (21). The latter is characterized by the presence of a new absorption band in the electronic spectrum. According to the Mulliken charge transfer (CT) theory for weak EDA complexes, the absorption maximum hv rp corresponds to the vertical (Franck-Condon) transition from the neutral ground state to the polar excited state (22). 

In spectroscopy we may distinguish two types of process, adiabatic and vertical. Adiabatic excitation energies are by definition thermodynamic ones, and they are usually further defined to refer to at 0° K. In practice, at least for electronic spectroscopy, one is more likely to observe vertical processes, because of the Franck-Condon principle. The simplest principle for understandings solvation effects on vertical electronic transitions is the two-response-time model in which the solvent is assumed to have a fast response time associated with electronic polarization and a slow response time associated with translational, librational, and vibrational motions of the nuclei.92 One assumes that electronic excitation is slow compared with electronic response but fast compared with nuclear response. The latter assumption is quite reasonable, but the former is questionable since the time scale of electronic excitation is quite comparable to solvent electronic polarization (consider, e.g., the excitation of a 4.5 eV n — n carbonyl transition in a solvent whose frequency response is centered at 10 eV the corresponding time scales are 10 15 s and 2 x 10 15 s respectively). A theory that takes account of the similarity of these time scales would be very difficult, involving explicit electron correlation between the solute and the macroscopic solvent. One can, however, treat the limit where the solvent electronic response is fast compared to solute electronic transitions this is called the direct reaction field (DRF). 49,93 The accurate answer must lie somewhere between the SCRF and DRF limits 94 nevertheless one can obtain very useful results with a two-time-scale version of the more manageable SCRF limit, as illustrated by a very successful recent treatment... 

The Franck-Condon principle states that the excited state is formed with the same geometry as that of the ground state from which it derived. The transition is from the ground state to the excited state lying vertically above it. 

The multiplicity of excitations possible are shown more clearly in Figure 9.16, in which the Morse curves have been omitted for clarity. Initially, the electron resides in a (quantized) vibrational energy level on the ground-state Morse curve. This is the case for electrons on the far left of Figure 9.16, where the initial vibrational level is v" = 0. When the electron is photo-excited, it is excited vertically (because of the Franck-Condon principle) and enters one of the vibrational levels in the first excited state. The only vibrational level it cannot enter is the one with the same vibrational quantum number, so the electron cannot photo-excite from v" = 0 to v = 0, but must go to v = 1 or, if the energy of the photon is sufficient, to v = 1, v = 2, or an even higher vibrational state. 

Nuclei move much more slowly than the much-lighter electrons, so when a transition occurs from one electronic state to another, it takes place so rapidly that the nuclei of the vibrating molecule can be assumed to be fixed during the transition. This is called the Franck-Condon principle, and a consequence of it is that an electronic transition is represented by a vertical arrow such as that shown in Figure 2.5 that is, an electronic transition occurs within a stationary nuclear framework. Thus the electronic transition accompanying the absorption of a photon is often referred to as a vertical transition or Franck-Condon transition. 

Radiative transitions may be considered as vertical transitions and may therefore be explained in terms of the Franck-Condon principle. The intensity of any vibrational fine structure associated with such transitions will, therefore, be related to the overlap between the square of the wavefunctions of the vibronic levels of the excited state and ground state. This overlap is maximised for the most probable electronic transition (the most intense band in the fluorescence spectrum). Figure... 

Figure 6.22 Rearrangement of polar solvent dipoles (arrows) during the electron transfer process R + M — R + M. The initial stage is a vertical (Franck-Condon) electron transfer, and this is followed by reorganisation of the solvent dipoles...

Absorption of a photon by an alkene produces a (tt,Jt ) vertical (Franck-Condon) excited state in which the geometry of the ground state from which it was formed is retained. Since the (it,it ) state has no net n bonding, there is little barrier to free rotation about the former double bond. Thus, relaxation takes place rapidly, giving a nonvertical (it,it ) state with a lower energy and different geometry to the vertical excited state. 

Fig. 2.4. Top Potential energy diagrams with vertical transitions (Franck-Condon principle). Bottom shape of the absorption bands the vertical broken lines represent the absorption lines that are observed for a vapor, whereas broadening of the spectra is expected in solution (solid line).

Electron transfer reactions, treated by continuum theory, suggested that the Franck-Condon barrier (the barrier for the vertical transition of electrons), which is about four times the activation barrier for the isotopic electron transfer in solution, is due to Bom continuum solvation processes. Specific contributions for the activation of ions come from the solvent continuum far from the ion the important contribution from the solvent molecules oriented toward the central ion in the first and second solvation shells is neglected. ... 

Another consequence of the stronger interactions upon ionization is that the equilibrium geometry of the ionized complex may differ signihcantly from that of the neutral states. Broadened ionization onsets are frequently attributed to the spectral superposition of ionization into several vibrational levels for which Franck-Condon factors are more favorable. As a result, the adiabatic ionization potential may be considerably lower than the vertical potential, and the observed ionization onsets may occur above the adiabatic potential. Another factor to be considered is the conformation-dependent efifect, due to the different conformations of the solvent molecules. The most populated form of a complex may involve a less stable form of the solvent. After photoionisation, the lowest-energy dissociation channel in the complex ion leads to the most stable form of isolated solvent, which has to be taken into account for the estimate of the binding energy. 

Fig. 2.2. Electron ionization can be represented by a vertical line in this diagram. Thus, ions are formed in a vibrationaUy excited state if the intemuclear distance of the excited state is longer than in the ground state. Ions having internal energies below the dissociation energy D remain stable, whereas fragmentation will occur above. In few cases, ions are unstable, i.e., there is no minimum on their potential energy curve. The lower part schematically shows the distribution of Franck-Condon factors, fyc, for various transitions.

The probability of a particular vertical transition from the neutral to a certain vibrational level of the ion is expressed by its Franck-Condon factor. The distribution of Franck-Condon factors, /pc, describes the distribution of vibrational states for an excited ion. [33] The larger ri compared to ro, the more probable will be the generation of ions excited even well above dissociation energy. Photoelectron spectroscopy allows for both the determination of adiabatic ionization energies and of Franck-Condon factors (Chap. 2.10.1). 

The most likely electronic transition will occur without changes in the positions of the nuclei (e.g., little change in the distance between atoms) in the molecular entity and its environment. Such a state is known as a Franck-Condon state, and the transition is referred to as a vertical transition. In such transitions, the intensity of the vibronic transition is proportional to the square of the overlap interval between the vibrational wavefunctions of the two states. See Fluorescence Jablonski Diagram Comm, on Photochem. (1988) Pure and Appl. Chem. 60, 1055. 

Electronic transitions occur much more rapidly than do the motions of nuclei (Franck-Condon principle), and this results in a vertical transition (/.c., changes in the bond length cannot immediately attend photon absorption or emission). 

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