Radiationless transitions approximation

In Chapters 4 and 5 we made use of the theory of radiationless transitions developed by Robinson and Frosch.(7) In this theory the transition is considered to be due to a time-dependent intramolecular perturbation on non-stationary Bom-Oppenheimer states. Henry and Kasha(8) and Jortner and co-workers(9-12) have pointed out that the Bom-Oppenheimer (BO) approximation is only valid if the energy difference between the BO states is large relative to the vibronic matrix element connecting these states. When there are near-degenerate or degenerate zeroth-order vibronic states belonging to different configurations the BO approximation fails. 

Understand that intermolecular radiationless transitions of excited states are caused by a breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. 

Together with Sm another group of lines is often detected with the main line at 685 nm, which also has a very long decay time of several ms (Fig. 4. lOd). It is very close to the known resonance line of Sm. Under low power UV lamp excitation, the luminescence of Sm in fluorite is known only at low temperatures, starting from approximately 77 K, and is composed of narrow /-/ transition lines and a broad band of 4f-5d transitions (Tarashchan 1978 Krasilschikova et al. 1986). Evidently, under strong laser excitation, luminescence of Sm + may be seen even at room temperature, where 4f-5d luminescence is usually quenched because of radiationless transition. 

The decay time of the Cr " band of approximately 150 ns is very short for such emission. Radiative energy transfer may not explain it because in such a case the decay curves of each of the ions are independent of the presence of the other. Thus non-radiative energy transfer may also take part, probably via multipolar or exchange interactions. In such cases the process of luminescence is of an additive nature and the lifetime of the sensitizer from which the energy is transferred is determined, apart from the probability of emission and radiationless transitions, by the probability of the energy transfer to the ion activator. 

From the data of Hoogschagen and Gorter (104), the oscillator strength of the 5D4-+7F6 transition was obtained. By means of the Ladenburg formula, the spontaneous coefficient A46 was calculated. Using the relative-emission intensities, the rest of the A4J spontaneous-emission coefficients could be calculated. From these and a measured lifetime of 5.5 x 10 4 sec at 15°C, he calculated a quantum efficiency of 0.8 per cent. Kondrat eva concluded that the probability of radiationless transition for the trivalent terbium ion in aqueous solution is approximately two orders of magnitude greater than for the radiation transition. 

Since an absorption coefficient of 10,100 cm-1 is equivalent to an oscillator strength of approximately two, the Johnson-Rice calculated oscillator strength and the observed oscillator strength differ by an order of magnitude. However, the calculated shape of the absorption versus energy agrees relatively well with the optical and electron impact spectra. The slow rise of the ion yield spectrum must still be explained as being caused by radiationless transitions. 

W. M. Gelbart, K. F. Freed, and S. A. Rice, Internal Rotation and the Breakdown of the Adiabatic Approximation Many-Phonon Radiationless Transitions, in press. 

Let us assume the availability of a useful body of quantitative data for rates of decay of excited states to give new species. How do we generalize this information in terms of chemical structure so as to gain some predictive insight For reasons explained earlier, I prefer to look to the theory of radiationless transitions, rather than to the theory of thermal rate processes, for inspiration. Radiationless decay has been discussed recently by a number of authors.16-22 In this volume, Jortner, Rice, and Hochstrasser 23 have presented a detailed theoretical analysis of the problem, with special attention to the consequences of the failure of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. They arrive at a number of conclusions with which I concur. Perhaps the most important is, "... the theory of photochemical processes outlined is at a preliminary stage of development. Extension of that theory should be of both conceptual and practical value. The term electronic relaxation has been applied to the process of radiationless decay. 

The Born-Oppenheimer (BO) description is not exact. The deviation from the BO approximation can be treated as an additional nonadiabatic interaction. This interaction does not depend on time and can be the origin of radiationless transitions. Moreover, the nonadiabatic interaction is a main mechanism for one kind of indirect photodissociation, namely, photopredissociation of Type I (electronic predissociation). 

Chapter 3 describes radiationless transitions in the tunneling electron transfers in multi-electron systems. The following are examined within the framework of electron Green s function approach the dependence on distance, the influence of crystalline media, and the effect of intermediate particles on the tunneling transfer. It is demonstrated that the Born-Oppenheimer approximation for the wave function is invalid for longdistance tunneling. 

This section briefly introduces the generalized coupled master equation within the Born-Oppenheimer adiabatic (BOA) approximation. In this case, the non-adiabatic processes are treated as the vibronic transitions between the vibronic manifolds. Three types of the rate constant are then introduced to specify the nature of the transitions depending on whether the electronically excited molecular system achieves its vibrational thermal equilibrium or not. The radiationless transitions can occur between two... 

The theory of radiationless transitions (or electronic relaxation) based on the BOA approximation as a basis set was originally proposed by Huang and Rhys [29] and applied to color centers and later modified and extended by Lin and Bersohn [30] to molecular systems in photochemistry and photophysics. Notice that for the IC a b, the IC rate constant is given by... 

This equation indicates that it is a real number and that when Wbal i is large, only the high frequency accepting modes play an important role in radiationless transitions, for example, if one compares the term elt a> for coj = 100 cm-1 and for coj = 3000 cm-1. To apply this approximation method, it is necessary to first solve Eq. (79) for it this can be accomplished by introducing an average frequency (usually the frequency of major accepting modes) it is then obtained... 

Although a theoretical approach has been desecrated as to how one can apply the generalized coupled master equations to deal with ultrafast radiationless transitions taking place in molecular systems, there are several problems and limitations to the approach. For example, the number of the vibrational modes is limited to less than six for numerical calculations. This is simply just because of the limitation of the computational resources. If the efficient parallelization can be realized to the generalized coupled master equations, the limitation of the number of the modes can be relaxed. In the present approach, the Markov approximation to the interaction between the molecule and the heat bath mode has been employed. If the time scale of the ultrashort measurements becomes close to the characteristic time of the correlation time of the heat bath mode, the Markov approximation cannot be applicable. In this case, the so-called non-Markov treatment should be used. This, in turn, leads to a more computationally demanding task. Thus, it is desirable to develop a new theoretical approach that allows a more efficient algorithm for the computation of the non-Markov kernels. Another problem is related to the modeling of the interaction between the molecule and the heat bath mode. In our model, the heat bath mode is treated as... 

Diabatic photoreaction Within the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, a reaction beginning on one excited state potential-energy surface and ending, as a result of radiationless transition, on another surface, usually that of the ground state. Also called non-adiabatic. 

Radiative lifetime (to) The lifetime of an excited molecular entity in the absence of radiationless transitions. It is the reciprocal of the first-order rate constant for the radiative step, or of the sum of these rate constants if there is more than one such step. The equivalent term, natural lifetime, is discouraged. Approximate expressions exist relating Tq to the oscillator strength of the emitting transition. 

For most carbonyl compounds, kp is approximately independent of vibrational excitation energy (Eypp,), whereas kfjR usually increases with Evpp,. Therefore, p becomes smaller and ip becomes shorter as Evpb increases. Typically, highly sensitive technique of fluorescence excitation spectroscopy permits measurement of Op over an extensive range of Evib- Hence the rates of radiative transitions as well as the rates of radiationless transitions of SVLs and SRVLs can be readily determined (135). For simple carbonyl compounds with small amounts of vibrational energy in the Sp state, collision-induced processes can become important at pressures above a few torr, since the lifetimes (tp) are comparable to the mean collision times (tu) at these pressures. Rate data reported for a number of aliphatic carbonyls are summarized in Table 2. 

In the non-CT radiationless transition the change in electronic charge interacts with the nuclei in a similar maimer both before and after the transition. Two types of processes can be identified internal conversion processes in which the transition is between spin states of the same multiplicity and intersystem crossing process in which the transition is between states of different spin multiplicity. For non-CT internal conversion processes the full BO (Bom—Oppenheimer) adiabatic wave-functions for the supramolecular complex are used as the zero-order basis [42-44]. The perturbations that cause the transition are the vibronic coupling between the nuclear and electron motions. These are just the terms that are neglected in the BO approximation [45]. The terms are expanded (normally to first order) in the normal vibrational coordinates of the nuclei as is customarily done for optical vibronic transitions. Thus one obtains Eq. 61b for cases when only one normal mode couples the two states... 

In the framework of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, radiationless transitions from one surface to another are impossible. (See, e.g., Michl and BonaCit -Koutecky, 1990.) It is therefore necessary to go beyond the Born-Oppenheimer approximation and to include the interaction between different electronic molecular states through the nuclear motion in order to be able to describe such transitions. Using the time-dependent perturbation theory for the rate constant of a transition between a pair of states one arrives at... 

This review shows how the photochemistry of ketones can be rationalized through a single model, the Tunnel Effect Theory (TET), which treats reactions of ketones as radiationless transitions from reactant to product potential energy curves (PEC). Two critical approximations are involved in the development of this theory (i) the representation of reactants and products as diatomic harmonic oscillators of appropriate reduced masses and force constants (ii) the definition of a unidimensional reaction coordinate (RC) as the sum of the reactant and product bond distensions to the transition state. Within these approximations, TET is used to calculate the reactivity parameters of the most important photoreactions of ketones, using only a partially adjustable parameter, whose physical meaning is well understood and which admits only predictable variations. 

In 1976 TET was first applied to H abstractions [53]. One year later Suhnel [54] used TET to explain radiationless transitions in indigoid compounds, and Phillips [55] tested the harmonic approximation used by the theory in H abstractions. CT interactions [56] and substituent effects [57] in H abstractions were also addressed, as well as H abstractions by uranyl ion [58]. Support for TET also came from the demonstration [59] that in radiationless transitions theories, some Franck-Condon factors may be expressed by a nuclear tunneling formula like the TET one. 

Fig. 1. The molecular energy level model used to discuss radiationless transitions in polyatomic molecules. 0O, s, and S0,S are vibronic components of the ground, an excited, and a third electronic state, respectively, in the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. 0S and 0 and 0j are assumed to be allowed, while transitions between j0,j and the thermally accessible 00 are assumed to be forbidden. The f 0n are the molecular eigenstates...

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