skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Absorption lineshapes of molecular aggregates revisited

Journal Article · · Journal of Chemical Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4918343· OSTI ID:22415658
;  [1];  [1]
  1. Department of Theoretical Physics, Faculty of Physics, Vilnius University, Sauletekio 9-III, 10222 Vilnius (Lithuania)

Linear absorption is the most basic optical spectroscopy technique that provides information about the electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom of molecular systems. In simulations of absorption lineshapes, often diagonal fluctuations are included using the cumulant expansion, and the off-diagonal fluctuations are accounted for either perturbatively, or phenomenologically. The accuracy of these methods is limited and their range of validity is still questionable. In this work, a systematic study of several such methods is presented by comparing the lineshapes with exact results. It is demonstrated that a non-Markovian theory for off-diagonal fluctuations, termed complex time dependent Redfield theory, gives good agreement with exact lineshapes over a wide parameter range. This theory is also computationally efficient. On the other hand, accounting for the off-diagonal fluctuations using the modified Redfield lifetimes was found to be inaccurate.

OSTI ID:
22415658
Journal Information:
Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol. 142, Issue 15; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0021-9606
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English