Ab initio studies of aromatic excimers using multiconfiguration quasi-degenerate perturbation theory.

The aromatic excimers of benzene, naphthalene, anthracene, pyrene, and perylene are systematically investigated using the multiconfiguration quasi-degenerate perturbation theory (MCQDPT) method, which is one of high-level ab initio quantum chemical methods. The reference configuration space for MCQDPT is carefully designed for an appropriate description of the target electronic state with a tractable computational cost. The dimers with eclipsed parallel arrangement are investigated. The basis set dependence of the selected spectroscopic parameters is examined for the benzene and naphthalene dimers, and that of the excimer binding energy is found to be significant. In contrast, the equilibrium intermolecular distance and excimer fluorescence energy are less sensitive to the size of the basis sets used, and they agree with the corresponding experimental values, even with a nonextensive basis set size. The calculated spectroscopic parameters for anthracene, pyrene, and perylene dimers are also in good agreement with the experimental results. The electronic properties of the excimers are discussed in relation to those of the corresponding monomers. The wave functions of the excimers are analyzed in detail to clarify the origin of the attractive nature between the two monomers.