Ultrafast energy transfer between π-stacked aromatic rings upon inner-valence ionization

• Published in: Nature chemistry Vol. 14; no. 2; pp. 232 - 238
• Main Authors: Ren, Xueguang, Zhou, Jiaqi, Wang, Enliang, Yang, Tao, Xu, Zhongfeng, Sisourat, Nicolas, Pfeifer, Thomas, Dorn, Alexander
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Nature Publishing Group 01.02.2022
• Subjects: Aromatic compounds; Benzene; Cations; Chemical reactions; Decay; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Dimers; DNA; Drug interactions; Electron impact; Electrons; Energy transfer; Excitation; Hydrocarbons; Ionization; Molecular dynamics; Nucleic acids; Organic materials; Physicochemical properties; Protein folding; Self-assembly; Spectroscopy; Stacking
• ISSN: 1755-4330; 1755-4349
• DOI: 10.1038/s41557-021-00838-4

Non-covalently bound aromatic systems are ubiquitous and govern the physicochemical properties of various organic materials. They are important to many phenomena of biological and technological relevance, such as protein folding, base-pair stacking in nucleic acids, molecular recognition and self-assembly, DNA-drug interactions, crystal engineering and organic electronics. Nevertheless, their molecular dynamics and chemical reactivity, particularly in electronic excited states, are not fully understood. Here, we observe intermolecular Coulombic decay in benzene dimers, (C H ) -the simplest prototypes of noncovalent π-π interactions between aromatic systems. Intermolecular Coulombic decay is initiated by a carbon 2s vacancy state produced by electron-impact ionization and proceeds through ultrafast energy transfer between the benzene molecules. As a result, the dimer relaxes with the emission of a further low-energy electron (<10 eV) and a pair of C H cations undergoing Coulomb explosion. Coincident fragment-ion and electron momentum spectroscopy, accompanied by ab initio calculations, enables us to elucidate the dynamical details of this ultrafast relaxation process.