Tracking excited state decay mechanisms of pyrimidine nucleosides in real time

DNA owes its remarkable photostability to its building blocks—the nucleosides—that efficiently dissipate the energy acquired upon ultraviolet light absorption. The mechanism occurring on a sub-picosecond time scale has been a matter of intense debate. Here we combine sub-30-fs transient absorption spectroscopy experiments with broad spectral coverage and state-of-the-art mixed quantum-classical dynamics with spectral signal simulations to resolve the early steps of the deactivation mechanisms of uridine (Urd) and 5-methyluridine (5mUrd) in aqueous solution. We track the wave packet motion from the Franck-Condon region to the conical intersections (CIs) with the ground state and observe spectral signatures of excited-state vibrational modes. 5mUrd exhibits an order of magnitude longer lifetime with respect to Urd due to the solvent reorganization needed to facilitate bulky methyl group motions leading to the CI. This activates potentially lesion-inducing dynamics such as ring opening. Involvement of the 1nπ* state is found to be negligible.

Investigating the Selective Control of Photoassociation of Yb2

The selective control of photoassociation of Yb2 is investigated in theory. Based on ab initio to rationalize Franck–Condon filtering, the optimal target states of photoassociation have been obtained. The corresponding vibrational transitions from X1Σ+g to the excited state (A1Σu+, B1Πu, C1Σu+, and D1Πu) are v ′ = 23, 50, 55, and 0, respectively. By using quantum wave packet dynamic methods, we calculated the yields with time evaluation for the selected target states. The projections of time-dependent wave functions of initial states on the target vibrational eigenstates reflected the synthetic yields of Yb2. For target A1Σu+, we used Gaussian pulse to make the yield of v ′ = 23 up to 97% at 725 fs. After a laser pulse, the positive chirp promoted the yield of vibrational states to increase, but the negative chirp inhibited its decrease. For the D1Πu state, when laser intensity is 1.0 × 1014 W/cm2, the purity and yield of target state v ′ = 0 reached the maximum at 1350 fs. That is to say, changing the laser parameters and pulse shapes could control the photochemical reaction along our desired direction. These conditions will provide an important reference and suggest a scheme for a feasible photoassociation of further experimental and theoretical research studies. Current study may promote an important step toward the realization of highly accurate quantum manipulation and material synthesis.