Spontaneous-Symmetry-Breaking Charge Separation Induced by Pseudo-Jahn-Teller Distortion in Organic Photovoltaic Material.

The driving force of charge separation in the initial photovoltaic conversion process is theoretically investigated using ITIC, a nonfullerene acceptor material for organic photovoltaic devices. The density functional theory calculations show that the pseudo-Jahn-Teller (PJT) distortion of the S1 excimer state induces spontaneous symmetry-breaking charge separation between the identical ITIC molecules even without the asymmetry of the surrounding environment. The strong PJT effect arises from the vibronic coupling between the pseudodegenerate S1 and S2 excited states with different irreducible representations (irreps), i.e., Au for S1 and Ag for S2, via the asymmetric vibrational mode with the Au irrep. The vibrational mode responsible for the spontaneous polarization, which is opposite in one ITIC monomer and the other, is the intramolecular C-C stretching vibration between the core IT and terminal IC units. These results suggest that controlling the PJT effect can improve the charge separation efficiency of the initial photovoltaic conversion process.

An Open-shell, Luminescent, Two-Dimensional Coordination Polymer with a Honeycomb Lattice and Triangular Organic Radical.

The use of organic radicals as building blocks is an effective approach to the production of open-shell coordination polymers (CPs). Two-dimensional (2D) CPs with honeycomb spin-lattices have attracted attention because of the unique electronic structures and physical properties afforded by their structural topology. However, radical-based CPs with honeycomb spin-lattices tend to have low chemical stability or poor crystallinity, and thus novel systems with high crystallinity and persistence are in strong demand. In this study, a novel triangular organic radical possessing three pyridyl groups, tris(3,5-dichloro-4-pyridyl)methyl radical (trisPyM) was prepared. It exhibits luminescence, high photostability, and a coordination ability, allowing formation of defined and persistent 2D CPs. Optical measurements confirmed the luminescence of trisPyM both in solution and in the solid state, with emission wavelengths, λem, of 665 and 700 nm, respectively. trisPyM exhibits better chemical stability under photoirradiation than other luminescent radicals: the half-life of trisPyM in CH2Cl2 was 10 000 times that of the tris(2,4,6-trichlorophenyl)methyl radical (TTM), a conventional luminescent radical. Complexation between trisPyM and ZnII(hfac)2 yielded a single crystal of a 2D CP trisZn, possessing a honeycomb lattice with graphene-like spin topology. The coordination structure of trisZn is stable under evacuation at 60 °C. Moreover, trisZn exhibits luminescence at 79 K, with λem = 695 nm, and is a rare example of a luminescent material among 2D radical-based CPs. Our results indicate that trisPyM may be a promising building block in the construction of a new class of 2D honeycomb CPs with novel properties, including luminescence.

Quadratically convergent self-consistent field of projected Hartree-Fock.

We report on a quadratically convergent self-consistent field (QC-SCF) algorithm for the spin-projected unrestricted Hartree-Fock (SUHF) to mitigate the slow convergence of SUHF due to the presence of small eigenvalues in the orbital Hessian matrix. The new QC-SCF is robust and stable, allowing us to obtain the SUHF solutions very quickly. To demonstrate the applicability of the method, we present results for test systems with abundant non-dynamic correlation in comparison with the Roothaan repeated diagonalization, Pople extrapolation, and direct inversion of iterative subspace.

Towards Near-Exact Solutions of Molecular Electronic Structure: Full Coupled-Cluster Reduction with a Second-Order Perturbative Correction.

We introduce a new augmented adaptation of the recently developed full coupled-cluster reduction (FCCR) with a second-order perturbative correction, abbreviated as FCCR(2). FCCR is a selected coupled-cluster expansion aimed at optimally reducing the excitation manifold and commutator expansions for high-rank excitations for obtaining accurate solutions of the electronic Schödinger equation in a size-extensive manner. The present FCCR(2) enables estimating the residual correlation of FCCR by the second-order perturbative correction E(2) from the complementary space of the FCCR projection manifold. The linear relationship between E(2) and the energy of FCCR(2) allows accurate estimates of near-exact energies for a wide variety of molecules with strong electron correlation. The potential of the method is demonstrated using challenging cases, the ground-state electronic energy of the benzene molecule in equilibrium and stretched geometries, and the isomerization energy of the transition metal complex [Cu(NH3)]2O22+.

Third-order Epstein-Nesbet perturbative correction to the initiator approximation of configuration space quantum Monte Carlo.

We implement Epstein-Nesbet perturbative corrections in the third-order for the initiator approximation of the configuration space quantum Monte Carlo. An improved sampling algorithm is proposed to address the stochastic noise of the corrections. The stochastic error for the perturbative corrections is considerably larger than that for the reference energy, and it fails to provide reasonable results unless a very long imaginary time integration is performed. The new sampling algorithm accumulates rejected walkers from multiple independent steps to cover a larger portion of the secondary space. The performance of the perturbative corrections is demonstrated for small molecules.

Full Coupled-Cluster Reduction for Accurate Description of Strong Electron Correlation.

A full coupled-cluster expansion suitable for sparse algebraic operations is developed by expanding the commutators of the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff series explicitly for cluster operators in binary representations. A full coupled-cluster reduction that is capable of providing very accurate solutions of the many-body Schrödinger equation is then initiated employing screenings to the projection manifold and commutator operations. The projection manifold is iteratively updated through the single commutators ⟨κ|[H[over ^],T[over ^]]|0⟩ comprised of the primary clusters T[over ^]_{λ} with a substantial contribution to the connectivity. The operation of the commutators is further reduced by introducing a correction, taking into account the so-called exclusion-principle-violating terms that provides a fast and near-variational convergence in many cases.

Analytic energy gradient of projected Hartree-Fock within projection after variation.

We develop a geometrical optimization technique for the projection-after-variation (PAV) scheme of the recently refined projected Hartree-Fock (PHF) as a fast alternative to the variation-after-projection (VAP) approach for optimizing the structures of molecules/clusters in symmetry-adapted electronic states at the mean-field computational cost. PHF handles the nondynamic correlation effects by restoring the symmetry of a broken-symmetry single reference wavefunction and moreover enables a black-box treatment of orbital selections. Using HF orbitals instead of PHF orbitals, our approach saves the computational cost for the orbital optimization, avoiding the convergence problem that sometimes emerges in the VAP scheme. We show that PAV-PHF provides geometries comparable to those of the complete active space self-consistent field and VAP-PHF for the tested systems, namely, CH2, O3, and the [Cu2O2]2+ core, where nondynamic correlation is abundant. The proposed approach is useful for large systems mainly dominated by nondynamic correlation to find stable structures in many symmetry-adapted states.

One-Shot Double Amination of Sondheimer-Wong Diynes: Synthesis of Photoluminescent Dinaphthopentalenes.

Photoluminescent diamino-substituted dinaphthopentalenes were synthesized successfully by the treatment of in situ prepared dinaphthocyclooctadiyne with lithium amide. This reaction involves a series of transformations including the nucleophilic addition of the lithium amide to a triple bond of the cyclooctadiyne moiety, transannulation, protonation of the resulting pentalene anion, and the nucleophilic substitution of the pentalene core with the lithium amide. In this procedure, a novel double amination step plays a key role. When the diamino-substituted dinaphthopentalenes were irradiated with UV light in toluene, fluorescence was observed at around 580 nm (ΦF < 0.03).

Quantum yield in blue-emitting anthracene derivatives: vibronic coupling density and transition dipole moment density.

A theoretical design principle for enhancement of the quantum yield of light-emitting molecules is desired. For the establishment of the principle, we focused on the S1 states of blue-emitting anthracene derivatives: 2-methyl-9,10-di(2'-naphthyl)anthracene (MADN), 4,9,10-bis(3',5'-diphenylphenyl)anthracene (MAM), 9-(3',5'-diphenylphenyl)-10-(3'',5''-diphenylbiphenyl-4''-yl) anthracene (MAT), and 9,10-bis(3''',5'''-diphenylbiphenyl-4'-yl) anthracene (TAT) [Kim et al., J. Mater. Chem., 2008, 18, 3376]. The vibronic coupling constants and transition dipole moments were calculated and analyzed by using the concepts of vibronic coupling density (VCD) and transition dipole moment density (TDMD), respectively. It is found that the driving force of the internal conversions and vibrational relaxations originate mainly from the anthracenylene group. On the other hand, fluorescence enhancement results from the large torsional distortion of the side groups in the S1 state. The torsional distortion is caused by the diagonal vibronic coupling for the lowest-frequency mode in the Franck-Condon (FC) S1 state, which originates from a small portion of the electron density difference on the side groups. These findings lead to the following design principles for anthracene derivatives with a high quantum yield: (1) reduction in the electron density difference and overlap density between the S0 and S1 states in the anthracenylene group to suppress vibrational relaxation and radiationless transitions, respectively; (2) increase in the overlap density in the side group to enhance the fluorescence.

Vibronic coupling density analysis for the chain-length dependence of reorganization energies in oligofluorenes: a comparative study with oligothiophenes.

The vibronic coupling constants and reorganization energies of oligofluorenes OF(n) (n = 1-6) are calculated for their cationic states (hole transport). Those of oligothiophenes OT(2n) (n = 1-6) are also calculated for comparison. The vibronic coupling constants of OF(n) are smaller than those of OT(2n), and decrease with increasing n. For the elucidation of the small vibronic couplings of the oligofluorenes, the calculated vibronic coupling constants are analyzed on the basis of the concept of vibronic coupling density. The vibronic coupling density of OF(n) becomes small in the middle of the chain with increasing n because of the reduction in the electron-density difference between the neutral and cationic states. It is found that orbital relaxation plays a crucial role in the distribution of the electron-density difference. From the fragment molecular orbital analyses, the large orbital relaxation in OF(n) is found to originate from the small transfer integral between the fragment molecular orbitals. These findings led to a design principle for a carrier-transporting oligomer/polymer with small vibronic couplings, or small reorganization energy, as follows: the orbital interaction between the monomers should be small from the view of vibronic couplings.

Electronic spectra of cycl[3.3.2]azine and related compounds: solvent effect on vibronic couplings.

Quantitative ab initio calculations are presented for the ultraviolet-visible peaks of cycl[3.2.2]azine and its mono- and dibenzannulated polycyclic compounds at the multistate CASPT2 (MS-CASPT2) level of theory, with 11 nm deviation from the experimental S0 → S1 absorption. The electrophilic substitution reactions of cycl[3.2.2]azine, benzo[a]/[g]annulated cycl[3.2.2]azines, and 6-dimethylamino[2.2.3]cyclazine-1-carboxylates with 3-cyano-4-methylthiomaleimide gave the corresponding functionalized cycl[3.2.2]azine derivatives, which exhibited the absorption maxima around 510-630 nm. The first intense peaks were investigated by means of time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT). These peaks were systematically underevaluated by ∼50 nm, within the acceptable accuracies of TD-DFT. Furthermore, we calculated vibronic coupling constants of the electronic excited states of cycl[3.2.2]azine and simulated absorption spectra both in vacuo and in ethanol. The solvent effect is found to enhance oscillator strengths and vibronic couplings. This is because the solvent effect gives rise to changes in the electron density difference on the phenyl ring, and in turn, the intensified overlap between the electron density difference and the potential derivative in the phenyl ring leads to enhanced vibronic couplings in ethanol.