Solvent Effects on the Radiative and Nonradiative Decay of a Model of the Rhodopsin Chromophore.

The radiative and nonradiative decay of a model with five double bonds of the 11-cis-retinal protonated Schiff base was studied both in vacuum and in methanol solution using an extended version of the averaged solvent electrostatic potential from molecular dynamics data (ASEP/MD) method that allows the location of crossing points between free energy surfaces both in equilibrium and in frozen solvent conditions. The multireference quantum method CASSCF was used for the description of the states of interest, while the solvent structure was obtained from molecular dynamics simulations. Electron dynamic correlation corrections to the energy were included at CASPT2 level. Unlike in gas phase, where only two states seem to be implicated, in methanol solution, three states are necessary to describe the photoisomerization process. At the Franck-Condon point the S1 and S2 states are almost degenerate; consequently, the S1 surface has a region with an ionic character ((1)Bu-like) and another one with a covalent character ((2)Ag-like). Emission from the ionic minima is responsible for the low-frequency part of the fluorescence band, while emission from the covalent minima originates the high-frequency part. The ionic minimum is separated from the conical intersection yielding the all-trans isomer by an energy barrier that was estimated in 0.7 kcal/mol. The geometry of the optimized conical intersection was found at a torsion angle of the central double bond close to 90° both in vacuum and in methanol solution. This large torsion in addition to the accompanying charge displacements forces a strong solvent reorganization during the de-excitation process which slows down the photoisomerization kinetics in methanol with respect to the gas phase. Solvent fluctuations modulate the minima depth and the barrier height and could explain the multiexponential relaxation time observed in the experiments.