TY - JOUR A1 - Büchner, Robby A1 - Fondell, Mattis A1 - Haverkamp, Robert A1 - Pietzsch, Annette A1 - Vaz da Cruz, Vinícius A1 - Föhlisch, Alexander T1 - The porphyrin center as a regulator for metal-ligand covalency and pi hybridization in the entire molecule JF - Physical chemistry, chemical physics : PCCP ; a journal of European Chemical Societies N2 - The central moiety of porphyrins is shown to control the charge state of the inner complex and links it by covalent interaction to the peripheral substituents. This link, which enables the versatile functions of porphyrins, is not picked up in the established, reduced four orbital picture [Gouterman, J. Mol. Spectrosc., 1961, 6, 138]. X-ray absorption spectroscopy at the N K-edge with density functional theory approaches gives access to the full electronic structure, in particular the pi* manifold beyond the Gouterman orbitals. Systematic variation of the central moiety highlights two linked, governing trends: The ionicity of the porphyrin center increases from the aminic N-H to N-Cu to N-Zn to N-Mg to the iminic N:. At the same time covalency with peripheral substituents increases and compensates the buildup of high charge density at the coordinated nitrogen sites. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/d1cp03944j SN - 1463-9076 SN - 1463-9084 VL - 23 IS - 43 SP - 24765 EP - 24772 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Büchner, Robby A1 - Fondell, Mattis A1 - Mascarenhas, Eric Johnn A1 - Pietzsch, Annette A1 - Vaz da Cruz, Vinícius A1 - Föhlisch, Alexander T1 - How hydrogen bonding amplifies isomeric differences in pyridones toward strong changes in acidity and tautomerism JF - The journal of physical chemistry : B, Condensed matter, materials, surfaces, interfaces & biophysical chemistry N2 - Steric hindrance of hydration and hydrogen bond enhancement by localized charges have been identified as key factors for the massive chemical differences between the hydroxypyridine/pyridone isomers in aqueous solution. While all isomers occur mainly in the hydroxypyridine form in the gas phase, they differ by more than 3 orders of magnitude both in their acidity and tautomeric equilibrium constants upon hydration. By monitoring the electronic and solvation structures as a function of the protonation state and the O- substitution position on the pyridine ring, the amplification of the isomeric differences in aqueous solution has been investigated. Near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) measurements at the N K-edge served as the probe of the chemical state. The combination of molecular dynamics simulations, complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF), and time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) spectral calculations contributes to unraveling the principles of tautomerism and acidity in multiple biochemical systems based on tautomerism. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.0c10873 SN - 1520-6106 SN - 1520-5207 VL - 125 IS - 9 SP - 2372 EP - 2379 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Eckert, Sebastian A1 - Vaz da Cruz, Vinícius A1 - Ochmann, Miguel A1 - Ahnen, Inga von A1 - Föhlisch, Alexander A1 - Huse, Nils T1 - Breaking the symmetry of pyrimidine BT - solvent effects and core-excited state dynamics JF - The journal of physical chemistry letters N2 - Symmetry and its breaking crucially define the chemical properties of molecules and their functionality. Resonant inelastic X-ray scattering is a local electronic structure probe reporting on molecular symmetry and its dynamical breaking within the femtosecond scattering duration. Here, we study pyrimidine, a system from the C-2v point group, in an aqueous solution environment, using scattering though its 2a(2) resonance. Despite the absence of clean parity selection rules for decay transitions from in-plane orbitals, scattering channels including decay from the 7b(2) and 11a(1) orbitals with nitrogen lone pair character are a direct probe for molecular symmetry. Computed spectra of explicitly solvated molecules sampled from a molecular dynamics simulation are combined with the results of a quantum dynamical description of the X-ray scattering process. We observe dominant signatures of core-excited Jahn-Teller induced symmetry breaking for resonant excitation. Solvent contributions are separable by shortening of the effective scattering duration through excitation energy detuning. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01865 SN - 1948-7185 VL - 12 IS - 35 SP - 8637 EP - 8643 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mascarenhas, Eric Johnn A1 - Fondell, Mattis A1 - Büchner, Robby A1 - Eckert, Sebastian A1 - Vaz da Cruz, Vinícius A1 - Föhlisch, Alexander T1 - Photo-induced ligand substitution of Cr(CO)(6) in 1-pentanol probed by time resolved X-ray absorption spectroscopy JF - Physical chemistry, chemical physics : a journal of European Chemical Societies N2 - Cr(CO)(6) was investigated by X-ray absorption spectroscopy. The spectral signature at the metal edge provides information about the back-bonding of the metal in this class of complexes. Among the processes it participates in is ligand substitution in which a carbonyl ligand is ejected through excitation to a metal to ligand charge transfer (MLCT) band. The unsaturated carbonyl Cr(CO)(5) is stabilized by solution media in square pyramidal geometry and further reacts with the solvent. Multi-site-specific probing after photoexcitation was used to investigate the ligand substitution photoreaction process which is a common first step in catalytic processes involving metal carbonyls. The data were analysed with the aid of TD-DFT computations for different models of photoproducts and signatures for ligand rearrangement after substitution were found. The rearrangement was found to occur in about 790 ps in agreement with former studies of the photoreaction. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/d1cp05834g SN - 1463-9076 SN - 1463-9084 VL - 24 IS - 30 SP - 17979 EP - 17985 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Vaz da Cruz, Vinícius A1 - Eckert, Sebastian A1 - Föhlisch, Alexander T1 - TD-DFT simulations of K-edge resonant inelastic X-ray scattering within the restricted subspace approximation JF - Physical chemistry, chemical physics : PCCP ; a journal of European Chemical Societies N2 - A scheme for simulations of resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) cross-sections within time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) applying the restricted subspace approximation (RSA) is presented. Therein both occupied core and valence Kohn-Sham orbitals are included in the donor-space, while the accepting virtual orbital space in the linear response TD-DFT equations is restricted to efficiently compute both the valence- and core-excited states of the many electron system. This yields a consistent description of all states contributing to the RIXS scattering process within a single calculation. The introduced orbital truncation allows to automatize the method and facilitates RIXS simulations for systems considerably larger than ones accessible with wave-function based methods. Using the nitrogen K-edge RIXS spectra of 2-thiopyridone and its deprotonated anion as a showcase, the method is benchmarked for different exchange-correlation functionals, the impact of the RSA is evaluated, and the effects of explicit solvation are discussed. Improvements compared to simulations in the frozen orbital approximation are also assessed. The general applicability of the framework is further tested by comparison to experimental data from the literature. The use of TD-DFT core-excited states to the calculation of vibrationally resolved RIXS spectra is also investigated by combining potential energy scans along relevant coordinates with wave packet simulations. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/d0cp04726k SN - 1463-9076 SN - 1463-9084 VL - 23 IS - 3 SP - 1835 EP - 1848 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Vaz da Cruz, Vinícius A1 - Ignatova, Nina A1 - Couto, Rafael A1 - Fedotov, Daniil A1 - Rehn, Dirk R. A1 - Savchenko, Viktoriia A1 - Norman, Patrick A1 - Ågren, Hans A1 - Polyutov, Sergey A1 - Niskanen, Johannes A1 - Eckert, Sebastian A1 - Jay, Raphael Martin A1 - Fondell, Mattis A1 - Schmitt, Thorsten A1 - Pietzsch, Annette A1 - Föhlisch, Alexander A1 - Odelius, Michael A1 - Kimberg, Victor A1 - Gel’mukhanov, Faris T1 - Nuclear dynamics in resonant inelastic X-ray scattering and X-ray absorption of methanol JF - The journal of chemical physics : bridges a gap between journals of physics and journals of chemistr N2 - We report on a combined theoretical and experimental study of core-excitation spectra of gas and liquid phase methanol as obtained with the use of X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS). The electronic transitions are studied with computational methods that include strict and extended second-order algebraic diagrammatic construction [ADC(2) and ADC(2)-x], restricted active space second-order perturbation theory, and time-dependent density functional theory-providing a complete assignment of the near oxygen K-edge XAS. We show that multimode nuclear dynamics is of crucial importance for explaining the available experimental XAS and RIXS spectra. The multimode nuclear motion was considered in a recently developed "mixed representation" where dissociative states and highly excited vibrational modes are accurately treated with a time-dependent wave packet technique, while the remaining active vibrational modes are described using Franck-Condon amplitudes. Particular attention is paid to the polarization dependence of RIXS and the effects of the isotopic substitution on the RIXS profile in the case of dissociative core-excited states. Our approach predicts the splitting of the 2a RIXS peak to be due to an interplay between molecular and pseudo-atomic features arising in the course of transitions between dissociative core- and valence-excited states. The dynamical nature of the splitting of the 2a peak in RIXS of liquid methanol near pre-edge core excitation is shown. The theoretical results are in good agreement with our liquid phase measurements and gas phase experimental data available from the literature. (C) 2019 Author(s). Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5092174 SN - 0021-9606 SN - 1089-7690 VL - 150 IS - 23 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER -