@phdthesis{Issler2024,
  author    = {Issler, Kevin},
  title     = {Theory and simulation of ultrafast autodetachment dynamics and nonradiative relaxation in molecules},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-35223},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-352232},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2024},
  abstract  = {In this thesis, theoretical approaches for the simulation of electron detachment processes in molecules following vibrational or electronic excitation are developed and applied. These approaches are based on the quantum-classical surface-hopping methodology, in which nuclear motion is treated classically as an ensemble of trajectories in the potential of quantum-mechanically described electronic degrees of freedom.},
  subject      = {Theoretische Chemie},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Hoche2023,
  author    = {Hoche, Joscha},
  title     = {The life of an exciton: From ultrafast nonradiative relaxation to high quantum yield fluorescence},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-31684},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-316844},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {This thesis focuses on understanding and predicting processes in chromophores after electronic state excitation, particularly the impact on luminescence - the spontaneous emission of light. It considers the effect of processes preceding luminescence on emission properties, which are challenging to predict, especially in complex aggregates. For example, excitation energy transfer is a crucial process in understanding luminescence, as it allows the emission to occur from different molecular units than where the absorption occurs. This can lead to significant shifts in emission wavelength and fluorescence quantum yields. The thesis offers solutions to model this process effectively, understanding the impact of excitation energy and exciton coupling disorder on energy transfer rates and linking simulated energy transfer to experimental measurements. The work further explores excimer formation - an undesired luminescence loss channel due to its significant stabilization of the electronic state. Usually, the molecules obey a stacked conformation with parallel orientation to maximize the orbital overlap. This energetic lowering of the excited state can often result in trapping of the dimer in this state due to a deep minimum on the potential energy surface. The excimer formation dynamics, structural rearrangement, and its influence on singlet-correlated triplet pair states formation, critical for the singlet-fission process, have been extensively studied. The thesis also focuses on another luminescence loss channel triggered by conical intersections between the electronic ground and the first excited states. A new model is introduced to overcome limitations in current simulation methods, considering the solvent's electrostatic and frictional effects on the barriers. The model accurately describes merocyanine dyes' solvent-dependent photoluminescence quantum yields and characterizes all relaxation channels in different BODIPY oligomer series.},
  subject      = {Theoretische Chemie},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Kaiser2022,
  author    = {Kaiser, Dustin},
  title     = {Non-standard computational approaches applied to molecular systems},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-27664},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-276641},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {In this thesis, several contributions to the understanding and modeling of chemical phenomena using computational approaches are presented. These investigations are characterized by the usage of non-standard computational modeling techniques, which is necessitated by the complex nature of the electronic structure or atomic fluctuations of the target molecules. Multiple biradical-type molecules and their spectroscopic properties were modeled. In the course of the investigation, it is found that especially the impact of correct molecular geometries on the computationally predicted absorption properties may be critical. In order to find the correct minimum geometries, Multi-Reference methods may have to be invoked. The impact of geometry relaxation on the excitonic properties of Perylene Bisimide dimers were investigated. Oftentimes, these geometry factors are neglected in Organic Semiconductor modeling as an approximation. This present investigation suggests that this approximation is not always valid, as certain regimes are identified where geometrical parameters have critical impact on the localization and energetic properties of excitons. The mechanism of the Triazolinedione (TAD) tyrosine bioconjugation reaction is investigated using quantum-chemical methods. By comparison of different conceivable mechanisms and their energetic ordering, the TAD tyrosine bioconjugation is found to proceed by means of a base-mediated electrophilic aromatic substitution reaction. The kth nearest neighbor entropy estimation protocol is investigated. This estimator promises accurate entropy estimates even for flexible molecules with multiple structural minima. Our granular investigation of formal and practical properties of the estimator suggests that the uneven variance of a molecule's vibrational modes is the cause of the observed slow convergence of the estimator. A rescaling procedure to reestablish fast convergence is suggested and benchmarks are performed.},
  subject      = {Quantenchemie},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Sauer2021,
  author    = {Sauer, Susanne},
  title     = {Implementation and Application of QM/MM Hybrid Methods},
  doi       = {10.25972/OPUS-24321},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-243213},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Within this work, an additive and a subtractive QM/MM interface were implemented into CAST. The interactions between QM and MM system are described via electrostatic embedding. Link atoms are used to saturate dangling bonds originating from the separation of QM and MM system. Available energy evaluation methods to be combined include force fields (OPLSAA and AMBER), semi-empirical programs (Mopac and DFTB+), and quantum-chemical methods (from Gaussian, Orca, and Psi4). Both the additive and the subtractive interface can deal with periodic boundary conditions. The subtractive scheme was extended to enable QM/QM, three-layer, and multi-center calculations. Another feature only available within the subtractive interface is the microiteration procedure for local optimizations. The novel QM/MM methods were applied to the investigation of the reaction path for the complex formation between rhodesain and K11777. Benchmark calculations show a very good agreement with results from Gaussian-ONIOM. When comparing the relative energies obtained with different options to a computation where the whole system was treated with the "QM method" DFTB3, the electrostatic embedding scheme with option "delM3" gives the best results. "delM3" means that atoms with up to three bonds distance to the QM region are ignored when creating the external charges. This is done in order to avoid a double counting of Coulomb interactions between QM and MM system. The embedding scheme for the inner system in a three-layer calculation, however, does not have a significant influence on the energies. The same is true for the choice of the coupling scheme: Whether the additive or the subtractive QM/MM interface is applied does not alter the results significantly. The choice of the QM region, though, proved to be an important factor. As can be seen from the comparison of two QM systems of different size, bigger is not always better here. Instead, one has to make sure not to separate important (polar) interactions by the QM/MM border. After this benchmark study with singlepoint calculations, the various possibilities of CAST were used to approximate the solution of a remaining problem: The predicted reaction energy for the formation of the rhodesain-K11777 complex differs significantly depending on the starting point of the reaction path. The reason for this is assumed to be an inadequate adjustment of the environment during the scans, which leads to a better stabilization of the starting structure in comparison to the final structure. The first approach to improve this adjustment was performing the relaxed scan with a bigger QM region instead of the minimal QM system used before. While the paths starting from the covalent complex do not change significantly, those starting from the non-covalent complex become more exothermic, leading to a higher similarity of the two paths. Nevertheless, the difference of the reaction energy is still around 15 kcal/mol, which is far from a perfect agreement. For this reason, Umbrella Samplings were run. Here, the adjustment of the environment is not done by local optimizations like in the scans, but by MD simulations. This has the advantage that the system can cross barriers and reach different local minima. The relative free energies obtained by Umbrella Samplings with suitable QM regions are nearly identical, independently of the starting point of the calculation. Thus, \(\Delta A\) evaluated by these computations can be assumed to reproduce the real energy change best. An MD simulation that was started from the transition state in order to mimic a "real-time" reaction indicates a very fast adjustment of the environment during the formation of the complex. This confirms that Umbrella Sampling is probably better suitable to describe the reaction path than a scan, where the environment can never move strong enough to leave the current local minimum.},
  subject      = {Quantenmechanik},
  language  = {en}
}
@unpublished{LindnerSultangaleevaRoehretal.2019,
  author    = {Lindner, Joachim O. and Sultangaleeva, Karina and R{\"o}hr, Merle I. S. and Mitric, Roland},
  title     = {metaFALCON: A program package for automatic sampling of conical intersection seams using multistate metadynamics},
  series = {Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation},
  journal   = {Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-199258},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {The multistate metadynamics for automatic exploration of conical intersection seams and systematic location of minimum energy crossing points in molecular systems and its implementation into the software package metaFALCON is presented. Based on a locally modified energy gap between two Born-Oppenheimer electronic states as a collective variable, multistate metadynamics trajectories are driven toward an intersection point starting from an arbitrary ground state geometry and are subsequently forced to explore the conical intersection seam landscape. For this purpose, an additional collective variable capable of distinguishing structures within the seam needs to be defined and an additional bias is introduced into the off-diagonal elements of an extended (multistate) electronic Hamiltonian. We demonstrate the performance of the algorithm on the examples of the 1,3-butadiene, benzene, and 9H-adenine molecules, where multiple minimum energy crossing points could be systematically located using the Wiener number or Cremer-Pople parameters as collective variables. Finally, with the example of 9H-adenine, we show that the multistate metadynamics potential can be used to obtain a global picture of a conical intersection seam. Our method can be straightforwardly connected with any ab initio or semiempirical electronic structure theory that provides energies and gradients of the respective electronic states and can serve for systematic elucidation of the role of conical intersections in the photophysics and photochemistry of complex molecular systems, thus complementing nonadiabatic dynamics simulations.},
  language  = {en}
}