- authors
- H.-G. Duan, P. Nalbach, R. J. D. Miller, M. Thorwart
- date published
- Feb. 15, 2019
- journal
- The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
- volume, number
- 6 (10)
- pages
- 1206-1211
- web page
- https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.9b00242
- doi
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.9b00242
- abstract
Molecular vibration can influence exciton transfer via either a local (intramolecular) Holstein or a nonlocal (intermolecular) Peierls mode. We show that a strong vibronic coupling to a nonlocal mode dramatically speeds up the transfer by opening an additional transfer channel. This Peierls channel is rooted in the formation of a conical intersection of the excitonic potential energy surfaces. For increasing Peierls coupling, the electronically coherent transfer for weak coupling turns into an incoherent transfer of a localized exciton through the intersection for strong coupling. The interpretation in terms of a conical intersection intuitively explains recent experiments of ultrafast energy transfer in photosynthetic and photovoltaic molecular systems.