Computer simulation of band shapes in electronic absorption spectra of dimers of organic dyes

The band shapes in the absorption spectra of dimers of cyanine dyes were simulated using a combination of an empirical molecular force field for the ground stale with quantum-chemical calculations of the electron excitation energy as a function of normal nuclear coordinates. The shape and the width of an absorption band strongly depend on the mutual arrangement of the monomers. If the monomers are located one directly above the other, the sublevels arising from intramolecular vibrations disappear in the spectrum, and a large hypsochromic shift of the 0-0-transition band is observed, which results mainly from through-space interaction of monomer orbitals. If the monomers are strongly shifted relative to each other, the sublevels mentioned are also absent in the spectrum, but the bathochromic shift of the 0-0-transition band is small and results from interaction of dipole moments of electron transitions. A rather broad region of intermediate structures is found between these dimer forms, where the interaction of dipole moments of electron transitions in monomers is low, and the shapes of absorption bands are similar to those of the monomers.