Conical intersection dynamics of the primary photoisomerization event in vision.

Ever since the conversion of the 11-cis retinal chromophore to its all-trans form in rhodopsin was identified as the primary photochemical event in vision, experimentalists and theoreticians have tried to unravel the molecular details of this process. The high quantum yield of 0.65 (ref. 2), the production of the primary ground-state rhodopsin photoproduct within a mere 200 fs (refs 3-7), and the storage of considerable energy in the first stable bathorhodopsin intermediate all suggest an unusually fast and efficient photoactivated one-way reaction. Rhodopsin's unique reactivity is generally attributed to a conical intersection between the potential energy surfaces of the ground and excited electronic states enabling the efficient and ultrafast conversion of photon energy into chemical energy. But obtaining direct experimental evidence for the involvement of a conical intersection is challenging: the energy gap between the electronic states of the reacting molecule changes significantly over an ultrashort timescale, which calls for observational methods that combine high temporal resolution with a broad spectral observation window. Here we show that ultrafast optical spectroscopy with sub-20-fs time resolution and spectral coverage from the visible to the near-infrared allows us to follow the dynamics leading to the conical intersection in rhodopsin isomerization. We track coherent wave-packet motion from the photoexcited Franck-Condon region to the photoproduct by monitoring the loss of reactant emission and the subsequent appearance of photoproduct absorption, and find excellent agreement between the experimental observations and molecular dynamics calculations that involve a true electronic state crossing. Taken together, these findings constitute the most compelling evidence to date for the existence and importance of conical intersections in visual photochemistry.

Time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of hydrated electrons near a liquid water surface.

We present time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of trapped electrons near liquid surfaces. Photoemission from the ground state of a hydrated electron at 260 nm is found to be isotropic, while anisotropic photoemission is observed for the excited states of 1,4-diazabicyclo[2,2,2]octane and I- in aqueous solutions. Our results indicate that surface and subsurface species create hydrated electrons in the bulk side. No signature of a surface-bound electron has been observed.

Exploring ultrafast dynamics of pyrazine by time-resolved photoelectron imaging.

We present the simulation of time-resolved photoelectron imaging spectra of pyrazine in the gas phase. The approach we have adopted is based on the combination of the ab initio nonadiabatic molecular dynamics "on the fly" with an approximate treatment of the photoionization process using Dyson orbitals and Coulomb functions to describe the bound and ionized states of the photoelectron. The method has been implemented (Humeniuk, A.; et al. J. Chem. Phys 2013, 139, 134104) in the framework of the time-dependent density functional theory and has been applied here to interrogate the ultrafast internal conversion between the S2 and S1 states in pyrazine. Conventional time-resolved photoelectron spectra without angular resolution fail to locate the S2 → S1 internal conversion, because the ionization potentials relevant for the photoionization channels S2 → D1 (π(-1)) and S1 → D0 (n(-1)) are almost identical. Introducing the angular resolution in the photoelectron spectra reveals evidence of such ultrafast internal conversion and provides a more detailed picture of the overall dynamics. The simulated time- and energy-dependent anisotropy map obtained within the Dyson/time-dependent density functional theory approach is in good agreement with its experimental counterpart provided by Horio et al. (Horio, T.; et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009, 131, 10932). Our theoretical approach represents a general tool for mapping the time- and angle-resolved photoelectron spectra in complex systems and thus can be used to investigate the ultrafast relaxation processes occurring in isolated molecules.

Tracking the stilbene photoisomerization in the S(1) state using RASSCF.

In this work we compute the S1 potential energy curve responsible for stilbene cis-trans photoisomerisation employing the RASSCF approach, since the standard CASPT2//CASSCF protocol appears to be unsatisfactory in describing the stilbene S1 state. We find that RASSCF calculations, which are based on relatively few (but well chosen) configurations, produce qualitatively correct results and accurate relative excited state energies, both in the twisted and in the cis and trans regions of stilbene.

Significance of a zwitterionic state for fulgide photochromism: implications for the design of mimics.

Modeling and mimicry: an advanced computational model for the photocyclization of a furyl fulgide showed that a stable charge-transfer excited state, S(1), and the corresponding conical intersection with the ground state are responsible for the efficient photochromism observed in this system. This finding provides a rationale for the de novo design of related derivatives with similar (or even increased) efficiency.

Electrostatic control of the photoisomerization efficiency and optical properties in visual pigments: on the role of counterion quenching.

Hybrid QM(CASPT2//CASSCF/6-31G*)/MM(Amber) computations have been used to map the photoisomerization path of the retinal chromophore in Rhodopsin and explore the reasons behind the photoactivity efficiency and spectral control in the visual pigments. It is shown that while the electrostatic environment plays a central role in properly tuning the optical properties of the chromophore, it is also critical in biasing the ultrafast photochemical event: it controls the slope of the photoisomerization channel as well as the accessibility of the S(1)/S(0) crossing space triggering the ultrafast decay. The roles of the E113 counterion, the E181 residue, and the other amino acids of the protein pocket are explicitly analyzed: it appears that counterion quenching by the protein environment plays a key role in setting up the chromophore's optical properties and its photochemical efficiency. A unified scenario is presented that discloses the relationship between spectroscopic and mechanistic properties in rhodopsins and allows us to draw a solid mechanism for spectral tuning in color vision pigments: a tunable counterion shielding appears as the elective mechanism for L<-->M spectral modulation, while a retinal conformational control must dictate S absorption. Finally, it is suggested that this model may contribute to shed new light into mutations-related vision deficiencies that opens innovative perspectives for experimental biomolecular investigations in this field.

Modeling the photophysics and photochromic potential of 1,2-dihydronaphthalene (DHN): a combined CASPT2//CASSCF-topological and MMVB-dynamical investigation.

The photochemical ring opening of 1,2-dihydronaphthalene (DHN) was investigated using two complementary computational approaches. CASPT2//CASSCF minimum energy paths were characterized for reaction channels on the three lowest-energy singlet excited states, describing initial evolution of the spectroscopic bright (ionic) state and its subsequent decay to dark (covalent) states of benzene-like and hexatriene-like character. Although the benzene-like state is unreactive and can radiate, the hexatriene-like state has indirect access to a low-energy conical intersection seam, at which radiationless decay to the ground state and subsequent product formation can take place. An MMVB molecular dynamics simulation was carried out on the reactive hexatriene-like excited state, suggesting that intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution (IVR) controls the radiationless decay and the photoproduct distribution (which is qualitatively reproduced).

Photodynamics of free and solvated tyrosine.

We present a theoretical simulation of the ultrafast nonadiabatic photodynamics of tyrosine in the gas phase and in water. For this purpose, we combine our TDDFT/MM nonadiabatic dynamics (Wohlgemuth et al. J. Chem. Phys. 2011, 135, 054105) with the field-induced surface hopping method (Mitric et al. Phys. Rev. A 2009, 79, 053416) allowing us to explicitly include the nonadiabatic effects as well as femtosecond laser excitation into the simulation. Our results reveal an ultrafast deactivation of the initially excited bright ππ* state by internal conversion to a dark nπ* state. We observe deactivation channels along the O-H stretching coordinate as well as involving the N-H bond cleavage of the amino group followed by proton transfer to the phenol ring, which is in agreement with previous static energy path calculations. However, since in the gas phase the canonical form of tyrosine is the most stable one, the proton transfer proceeds in two steps, starting from the carboxyl group that first passes its proton to the amino group, from where it finally moves to the phenol ring. Furthermore, we also investigate the influence of water on the relaxation processes. For the system of tyrosine with three explicit water molecules solvating the amino group, embedded in a classical water sphere, we also observe a relaxation channel involving proton transfer to the phenol ring. However, in aqueous environment, a water molecule near the protonated amino group of tyrosine acts as a mediator for the proton transfer, underlining the importance of the solvent in nonradiative relaxation processes of amino acids.