We introduce FCclasses3, a code to carry out vibronic simulations of electronic spectra and nonradiative rates, based on the harmonic approximation. Key new features are: implementation of the full family of vertical and adiabatic harmonic models, vibrational analysis in curvilinear coordinates, extension to several electronic spectroscopies and implementation of time‐dependent approaches. The use of curvilinear valence internal coordinates allows the adoption of quadratic model potential energy surfaces (PES) of the initial and final states expanded at arbitrary configurations. Moreover, the implementation of suitable projectors provides a robust framework for defining reduced‐dimensionality models by sorting flexible coordinates out of the harmonic subset, so that they can then be treated at anharmonic level, or with mixed quantum classical approaches. A set of tools to facilitate input preparation and output analysis is also provided. We show the program at work in the simulation of different spectra (one and two‐photon absorption, emission and resonance Raman) and internal conversion rate of a typical rigid molecule, anthracene. Then, we focus on absorption and emission spectra of a series of flexible polyphenyl molecules, highlighting the relevance of some of the newly implemented features. The code is freely available at http://www.iccom.cnr.it/en/fcclasses/.
1 July 2014 in Computational and Theoretical Chemistry
We present a general mixed quantum classical method that couples classical Molecular Dynamics (MD) and vibronic models to compute the shape of electronic spectra of flexible molecules in condensed phase without, in principle, any phenomenological broadening. It is based on a partition of the nuclear motions of the solute+solvent system in "soft" and "stiff" vibrational modes, and an adiabatic hypothesis that assumes that stiff modes are much faster than soft ones. In this framework the spectrum is rigorously expressed as a conformational integral of quantum vibronic spectra along the stiff coordinates only. Soft modes enter at classical level through the conformational distribution that is sampled with classical MD runs. At each configuration, reduced-dimensionality quadratic Hamiltonians are built in the space of the stiff coordinates only, thanks to a generalization of the Vertical Hessian harmonic model and an iterative application of projectors in internal coordinates to remove soft modes. Quantum vibronic spectra, specific for each sampled configuration of the soft coordinates, are then computed at the desired temperature with efficient time-dependent techniques, and the global spectrum simply arises from their average. For consistency of the whole procedure, classical MD runs are performed with quantum-mechanically derived force fields, parameterized at the same level of theory selected for generating the quadratic Hamiltonians along the stiff coordinates. Application to N-methyl-6-oxyquinolinium betaine in water, dithiophene in ethanol, and a flexible cyanidine in water are presented to show the performance of the method.
9 November 2015 in Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation