TY - JOUR A1 - Reusch, Engelbert A1 - Holzmeier, Fabian A1 - Gerlach, Marius A1 - Fischer, Ingo A1 - Hemberger, Patrick T1 - Decomposition of Picolyl Radicals at High Temperature: A Mass Selective Threshold Photoelectron Spectroscopy Study JF - Chemistry - A European Journal N2 - The reaction products of the picolyl radicals at high temperature were characterized by mass‐selective threshold photoelectron spectroscopy in the gas phase. Aminomethylpyridines were pyrolyzed to initially produce picolyl radicals (m /z =92). At higher temperatures further thermal reaction products are generated in the pyrolysis reactor. All compounds were identified by mass‐selected threshold photoelectron spectroscopy and several hitherto unexplored reactive molecules were characterized. The mechanism for several dissociation pathways was outlined in computations. The spectrum of m /z =91, resulting from hydrogen loss of picolyl, shows four isomers, two ethynyl pyrroles with adiabatic ionization energies (IE\(_{ad}\)) of 7.99 eV (2‐ethynyl‐1H ‐pyrrole) and 8.12 eV (3‐ethynyl‐1H ‐pyrrole), and two cyclopentadiene carbonitriles with IE′s of 9.14 eV (cyclopenta‐1,3‐diene‐1‐carbonitrile) and 9.25 eV (cyclopenta‐1,4‐diene‐1‐carbonitrile). A second consecutive hydrogen loss forms the cyanocyclopentadienyl radical with IE′s of 9.07 eV (T\(_0\)) and 9.21 eV (S\(_1\)). This compound dissociates further to acetylene and the cyanopropynyl radical (IE=9.35 eV). Furthermore, the cyclopentadienyl radical, penta‐1,3‐diyne, cyclopentadiene and propargyl were identified in the spectra. Computations indicate that dissociation of picolyl proceeds initially via a resonance‐stabilized seven‐membered ring. KW - ionization energy KW - photoelectron spectroscopy KW - pyrolysis KW - radicals KW - synchrotron radiation Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-208132 VL - 25 IS - 72 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schleier, Domenik A1 - Reusch, Engelbert A1 - Lummel, Lisa A1 - Hemberger, Patrick A1 - Fischer, Ingo T1 - Threshold photoelectron spectroscopy of IO and IOH JF - ChemPhysChem N2 - Iodine oxides appear as reactive intermediates in atmospheric chemistry. Here, we investigate IO and HOI by mass‐selective threshold photoelectron spectroscopy (ms‐TPES), using synchrotron radiation. IO and HOI are generated by photolyzing iodine in the presence of ozone. For both molecules, accurate ionization energies are determined, 9.71±0.02 eV for IO and 9.79±0.02 eV for HOI. The strong spin‐spin interaction in the 3Σ− ground state of IO+ leads to an energy splitting into the Ω=0 and Ω=±1 sublevels. Upon ionization, the I−O bond shortens significantly in both molecules; thus, a vibrational progression, assigned to the I−O stretch, is apparent in both spectra. KW - ionization potential KW - radicals KW - reactive intermediates KW - photolysis KW - synchrotron radiatoren Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-204751 VL - 20 IS - 19 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mueller, Stefan A1 - Lüttig, Julian A1 - Malý, Pavel A1 - Ji, Lei A1 - Han, Jie A1 - Moos, Michael A1 - Marder, Todd B. A1 - Bunz, Uwe H. F. A1 - Dreuw, Andreas A1 - Lambert, Christoph A1 - Brixner, Tobias T1 - Rapid multiple-quantum three-dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy disentangles quantum pathways JF - Nature Communications N2 - Coherent two-dimensional spectroscopy is a powerful tool for probing ultrafast quantum dynamics in complex systems. Several variants offer different types of information but typically require distinct beam geometries. Here we introduce population-based three-dimensional (3D) electronic spectroscopy and demonstrate the extraction of all fourth- and multiple sixth-order nonlinear signal contributions by employing 125-fold (1⨯5⨯5⨯5) phase cycling of a four-pulse sequence. Utilizing fluorescence detection and shot-to-shot pulse shaping in single-beam geometry, we obtain various 3D spectra of the dianion of TIPS-tetraazapentacene, a fluorophore with limited stability at ambient conditions. From this, we recover previously unknown characteristics of its electronic two-photon state. Rephasing and nonrephasing sixth-order contributions are measured without additional phasing that hampered previous attempts using noncollinear geometries. We systematically resolve all nonlinear signals from the same dataset that can be acquired in 8 min. The approach is generalizable to other incoherent observables such as external photoelectrons, photocurrents, or photoions. KW - Atomic and molecular interactions with photons KW - Optical spectroscopy Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-202529 VL - 10 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Süß, Jasmin A1 - Wehner, Johannes G. A1 - Dostál, Jakub A1 - Engel, Volker A1 - Brixner, Tobias T1 - Mapping of exciton-exciton annihilation in a molecular dimer via fifth-order femtosecond two-dimensional spectroscopy JF - Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters N2 - We present a theoretical study on exciton–exciton annihilation (EEA) in a molecular dimer. This process is monitored using a fifth-order coherent two-dimensional (2D) spectroscopy as was recently proposed by Dostál et al. [Nat. Commun. 9, 2466 (2018)]. Using an electronic three-level system for each monomer, we analyze the different paths which contribute to the 2D spectrum. The spectrum is determined by two entangled relaxation processes, namely, the EEA and the direct relaxation of higher lying excited states. It is shown that the change of the spectrum as a function of a pulse delay can be linked directly to the presence of the EEA process. KW - exciton-exciton KW - Exziton KW - Spektroskopie KW - EEA KW - 2Dimensionale Spektroskopie KW - exciton Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-178420 UR - https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.5086151 N1 - This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in J. Süß et al., J. Chem. Phys. 150, 104304 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5086151 and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5086151. VL - 150 IS - 10 ER - TY - INPR A1 - Lindner, Joachim O. A1 - Sultangaleeva, Karina A1 - Röhr, Merle I. S. A1 - Mitric, Roland T1 - metaFALCON: A program package for automatic sampling of conical intersection seams using multistate metadynamics T2 - Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation N2 - 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. KW - Computational Chemistry KW - Metadynamics KW - Hydrogen KW - Hydrocarbons KW - Chemical Structure Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-199258 UR - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jctc.9b00029 N1 - This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation 2019, 15, 6, 3450-3460. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jctc.9b00029. ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hoche, Joscha A1 - Schulz, Alexander A1 - Dietrich, Lysanne Monika A1 - Humeniuk, Alexander A1 - Stolte, Matthias A1 - Schmidt, David A1 - Brixner, Tobias A1 - Würthner, Frank A1 - Mitric, Roland T1 - The origin of the solvent dependence of fluorescence quantum yields in dipolar merocyanine dyes JF - Chemical Science N2 - Fluorophores with high quantum yields are desired for a variety of applications. Optimization of promising chromophores requires an understanding of the non-radiative decay channels that compete with the emission of photons. We synthesized a new derivative of the famous laser dye 4-dicyanomethylen-2-methyl-6-p-dimethylaminostyryl-4H-pyran (DCM),i.e., merocyanine 4-(dicyanomethylene)-2-tert-butyl-6-[3-(3-butyl-benzothiazol-2-ylidene)1-propenyl]-4H-pyran (DCBT). We measured fluorescence lifetimes and quantum yields in a variety of solvents and found a trend opposite to the energy gap law.This motivated a theoretical investigation into the possible non-radiative decay channels. We propose that a barrier to a conical intersection exists that is very sensitive to the solvent polarity. The conical intersection is characterized by a twisted geometry which allows a subsequent photoisomerization. Transient absorption measurements confirmed the formation of a photoisomer in unpolar solvents, while the measurements of fluorescence quantum yields at low temperature demonstrated the existence of an activation energy barrier. KW - solvent-dependent fluorescence yield Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-198707 UR - https://doi.org/10.1039/C9SC05012D VL - 10 ER - TY - INPR A1 - Lisinetskaya, Polina G. A1 - Mitric, Roland T1 - Collective Response in DNA-Stabilized Silver Cluster Assemblies from First-Principles Simulations T2 - The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters N2 - We investigate fluorescence resonant energy transfer and concurrent electron dynamics in a pair of DNA-stabilized silver clusters. For this purpose we introduce a methodology for the simulation of collective optoelectronic properties of coupled molecular aggregates starting from first-principles quantum chemistry, which can be further applied to a broad range of coupled molecular systems to study their electro-optical response. Our simulations reveal the existence of low-energy coupled excitonic states, which enable ultrafast energy transport between subunits, and give insight into the origin of the fluorescence signal in coupled DNA-stabilized silver clusters, which have been recently experimentally detected. Hence, we demonstrate the possibility of constructing ultrasmall energy transmission lines and optical converters based on these hybrid molecular systems. KW - Metal clusters Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-198729 UR - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.9b03136 N1 - This document is the unedited Author’s version of a Submitted Work that was subsequently accepted for publication in Journal of Physical Chemistry A, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review. To access the final edited and published work see The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 2019, 10, 24, 7884-7889. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.9b03136. ER - TY - INPR A1 - Auerhammer, Nina A1 - Schulz, Alexander A1 - Schmiedel, Alexander A1 - Holzapfel, Marco A1 - Hoche, Joscha A1 - Röhr, Merle I. S. A1 - Mitric, Roland A1 - Lambert, Christoph T1 - Dynamic exciton localisation in a pyrene-BODIPY-pyrene dye conjugate T2 - Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics N2 - The photophysics of a molecular triad consisting of a BODIPY dye and two pyrene chromophores attached in 2-position are investigated by steady state and fs-time resolved transient absorption spectroscopy as well as by field induced surface hopping (FISH) simulations. While the steady state measurements indicate moderate chromophore interactions within the triad, the time resolved measurements show upon pyrene excitation a delocalised excited state which localises onto the BODIPY chromophore with a time constant of 0.12 ps. This could either be interpreted as an internal conversion process within the excitonically coupled chromophores or as an energy transfer from the pyrenes to the BODIPY dye. The analysis of FISH-trajectories reveals an oscillatory behaviour where the excitation hops between the pyrene units and the BODIPY dye several times until finally they become localised on the BODIPY chromophore within 100 fs. This is accompanied by an ultrafast nonradiative relaxation within the excitonic manifold mediated by the nonadiabatic coupling. Averaging over an ensemble of trajectories allowed us to simulate the electronic state population dynamics and determine the time constants for the nonradiative transitions that mediate the ultrafast energy transfer and exciton localisation on BODIPY. KW - Exciton localization dynamics Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-198718 UR - https://doi.org/10.1039/C9CP00908F N1 - Accepted manuscript ER - TY - INPR A1 - Röder, Anja A1 - Petersen, Jens A1 - Issler, Kevin A1 - Fischer, Ingo A1 - Mitric, Roland A1 - Poisson, Lionel T1 - Exploring the Excited-State Dynamics of Hydrocarbon Radicals, Biradicals and Carbenes using Time-Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy and Field-Induced Surface Hopping Simulations T2 - The Journal of Physical Chemistry A N2 - Reactive hydrocarbon molecules like radicals, biradicals and carbenes are not only key players in combustion processes and interstellar and atmospheric chemistry, but some of them are also important intermediates in organic synthesis. These systems typically possess many low-lying, strongly coupled electronic states. After light absorption, this leads to rich photodynamics characterized by a complex interplay of nuclear and electronic motion, which is still not comprehensively understood and not easy to investigate both experimentally and theoretically. In order to elucidate trends and contribute to a more general understanding, we here review our recent work on excited-state dynamics of open-shell hydrocarbon species using time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy and field-induced surface hopping simulations, and report new results on the excited-state dynamics of the tropyl and the 1-methylallyl radical. The different dynamics are compared, and the difficulties and future directions of time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy and excited state dynamics simulations of open-shell hydrocarbon molecules are discussed. KW - Excited state dynamics KW - Hydrocarbon radicals KW - time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy KW - field-induced surface hopping Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-198734 UR - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpca.9b06346 N1 - This document is the unedited Author’s version of a Submitted Work that was subsequently accepted for publication in Journal of Physical Chemistry A, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review. To access the final edited and published work see Journal of Physical Chemistry A 2019, 123, 50, 10643-10662. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpca.9b06346. ER - TY - THES A1 - Götz, Sebastian Reinhold T1 - Nonlinear spectroscopy at the diffraction limit: probing ultrafast dynamics with shaped few-cycle laser pulses T1 - Nichtlineare Spektroskopie am Beugungslimit: Untersuchung ultraschneller Dynamiken mit geformten Laserpulsen N2 - An experimental setup for probing ultrafast dynamics at the diffraction limit was developed, characterized and demonstrated in the scope of the thesis, aiming for optical investigations while simultaneously approaching the physical limits on the length and timescale. An overview of this experimental setup was given in Chapter 2, as well as the considerations that led to the selection of the individual components. Broadband laser pulses with a length of 9.3 fs, close to the transform limit of 7.6 fs, were focused in a NA = 1.4 immersion oil objective, to the diffraction limit of below 300 nm (FWHM). The spatial focus shape was characterized with off-resonance gold nanorod scatterers scanned through the focal volume. For further insights into the functionality and limitations of the pulse shaper, its calibration procedure was reviewed. The deviations between designed and experimental pulse shapes were attributed to pulse-shaper artifacts, including voltage-dependent inter-layer as well as intra-layer LCD-pixel crosstalk, Fabry-Pérot-type reflections in the LCD layers, and space-time coupling. A pixel-dependent correction was experimentally carried out, which can be seen as an extension of the initial calibration to all possible voltage combinations of the two LCD layers. The capabilities of the experimental setup were demonstrated in two types of experiments, targeting the nonlinearity of gold (Chapter 3) as well as two-dimensional spectroscopy at micro-structured surfaces (Chapter 4). Investigating thin films, an upper bound for the absolute value for the imaginary part of the nonlinear refractive index of gold could be set to |n′′ 2 (Au)| < 0.6·10−16 m2/W, together with |n′ 2 (Au)| < 1.2·10−16 m2/W as an upper bound for the absolute value of the real part. Finite-difference time-domain simulations on y-shaped gold nanostructures indicated that a phase change of ∆Φ ≥ 0.07 rad between two plasmonic modes would induce a sufficient change in the spatial contrast of emission to the far-field to be visible in the experiment. As the latter could not be observed, this value of ∆Φ was determined as the upper bound for the experimentally induced phase change. An upper bound of 52 GW/cm2 was found for the damage threshold. In Chapter 4, a novel method for nonlinear spectroscopy on surfaces was presented. Termed coherent two-dimensional fluorescence micro-spectroscopy, it is capable of exploring ultrafast dynamics in nanostructures and molecular systems at the diffraction limit. Two-dimensional spectra of spatially isolated hotspots in structured thin films of fluorinated zinc phthalocyanine (F16ZnPc) dye were taken with a 27-step phase-cycling scheme. Observed artifacts in the 2D maps were identified as a consequence from deviations between the desired and the experimental pulse shapes. The optimization procedures described in Chapter 2 successfully suppressed the deviations to a level where the separation from the nonlinear sample response was feasible. The experimental setup and methods developed and presented in the scope of this thesis demonstrate its flexibility and capability to study microscopic systems on surfaces. The systems exemplarily shown are consisting of metal-organic dyes and metallic nanostructures, represent samples currently under research in the growing fields of organic semiconductors and plasmonics. N2 - Ein experimenteller Aufbau zur Untersuchung von ultraschnellen Dynamiken am Beugungslimit wurde in dieser Arbeit entwickelt, charakterisiert und demonstriert. Sie hatte zum Ziel, im Rahmen von optischen Beobachtungen gleichzeitig an die physikalischen Grenzen von Längen- und Zeitskalen zu gehen Es wurde ein Überblick über den verwendeten experimentellen Aufbau gegeben, zusammen mit den Überlegungen, die zur Auswahl der einzelnen Komponenten geführt haben. Für die Pulslänge der spektral breitbandigen Laserpulse wurde auf 9.3 fs gemessen, was nahe an der transformlimitierten Dauer von 7.6 fs liegt. Im beugungslimitierten Fokus eines Immersionsölobjektivs mit einer numerischen Apertur von 1.4 konnte das Licht räumlich auf eine Halbwertsbreite von unter 300 nm komprimiert werden. Der Fokus des Mikroskopobjektivs wurde mit Hilfe der Streuung von nicht resonanten Nanopartikeln aus Gold ausgemessen, indem diese räumlich durch den Fokus gerastert wurden. Zur weiteren Untersuchung des Funktionsumfangs und der Grenzen des benutzten Pulsformers wurde dessen Eichprozedur geprüft. Die Abweichungen zwischen gewünschten und tatsächlich angelegten Pulsformen wurden auf Artefakte des Pulsformers zurückgeführt. Diese Artefakte beinhalten eine spannungsabhängige Beeinflussung der LCD-Pixel sowohl zwischen benachbarten Pixeln einer Schicht als auch zwischen Pixeln unterschiedlicher Schichten. Eine pixelabhängige Korrektur wurde implementiert, die eine Erweiterung der ursprünglichen Kalibrierung auf alle möglichen Spannungskombinationen der LCD-Pixel darstellt. Die Möglichkeiten experimentellen Aufbaus wurden mit zwei Arten von Experimenten demonstriert: Messungen zur Bestimmung des nichtlinearen Brechungsindexes von Gold (Kapitel 3) sowie zweidimensionale Spektroskopie an mikrostrukturierten Oberflächen (Kapitel 4). Für den nichtlinearen Brechungsindexes von Gold konnte an Dünnschichten eine obere Grenze von |n′′ 2 (Au)| < 0.6·10−16 m2/W für den Betrag des Imaginärteils und |n′ 2 (Au)| < 1.2·10−16 m2/W für den Betrag des Realteils festgesetzt werden. Simulationen mit der Finite-Differenzen-Methode an Y-förmige Nanostrukturen aus Gold zeigten, dass eine Phasenänderung von ∆Φ ≥ 0.07 rad zwischen zwei plasmonischen Moden ausreichend für eine experimentell sichtbare Kontraständerung der Fernfeldabstrahlung wäre. Da letztere nicht beobachtet werden konnte, wurde dieser Wert für ∆Φ als obere Grenze für die experimentell eingeführte Phasenänderung festgesetzt. Für die Zerstörschwelle wurde eine obere Grenze von 52 GW/cm2 gefunden. In Kapitel 4, wurde eine neue Methode für nichtlineare Spektroskopie an Oberflächen vorgestellt. Sie trägt den Namen ”Kohärente zweidimensionale Fluoreszenz-Mikrospektroskopie“ und eignet sich zur Untersuchung ultraschneller Dynamiken in Nanostrukturen und molekularen Systemen am Beugungslimit. Es wurden 2D-Spektren von räumlich isolierten Hotspots einer strukturierten Zink-Phthalocyanin (F16ZnPc) Dünnschicht mit 27-fachem Phasecycling aufgenommen. Als Grund für Artefakte in den 2D-Karten wurden Abweichungen zwischen den gewünschten und experimentellen Pulsformen identifiziert. Durch die in Kapitel 2 vorgestellten Optimierungen konnten die Abweichungen allerdings so stark reduziert werden, dass deren Trennung von der nichtlinearen Antwort der Probe möglich wurde. Die Flexibilität und der Funktionsumfang zur Analyse mikroskopischer Systeme der im Rahmen dieser Arbeit entwickelten experimentellen Aufbauten und Methoden wurde demonstriert. Repräsentativ für die wachsenden Forschungsfelder der organischen Halbleiter und der Plasmonik wurden exemplarisch Systeme bestehend aus metall-organischen Farbstoffen und metallischen Nanostrukturen untersucht. KW - Ultrakurzzeitspektroskopie KW - Fluoreszenzspektroskopie KW - Fourier-Spektroskopie KW - Nanostruktur KW - Konfokale Mikroskopie KW - Coherent Multidimensional Spectroscopy KW - Laser Pulse Shaping KW - LCD Pulse Shaper KW - Surface Plasmon KW - Kohärente Multidimensionale Spektroskopie KW - Laserpulsformung KW - LCD Pulsformer KW - Oberflächenplasmon Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-192138 ER -