A study of the low-lying singlet and triplet electronic states of chlorophyll A and B

Abstract

Chlorophylls have been extensively investigated both experimentally and theoretically owing to the fact that they are essential for photosynthesis. We have studied two forms of chlorophyll, chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b, by means of density functional theory. Optimization of S0, S1 and T1 states was performed with the B3-LYP functional. The computed fluorescence lifetimes show good agreement with the available experimental data. The electronic adiabatic energies of S1 and T1 states are 2.09/2.12 and 1.19/1.29 eV for chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b respectively. We discussed the implications of this results on the triplet formation. Also, the calculated vertical ionization potentials shows good agreement with the experimental results.