Successful application of TD-DFT in transient absorption spectra assignment.

[Reaction: see text] Despite the wide application of time-resolved spectra technology in investigating various chemical and biological processes, it is still a great challenge to give an unambiguous spectra assignment for observed transient species, e.g., the curcumin-derived radicals. Here we report that time-dependent density functional theory with the B3LYP functional and an appropriate basis set can give reliable absorption spectra for carbon- and oxygen-centered radicals derived from curcumin, which indicates the potential of theoretical methods in helping assign transient spectra.