Tuning Electronic Relaxation of Nanorings Through Their Interlocking

Electronic and vibrational relaxation processes can be optimized and tuned by introducing alternative pathways that channel excess energy more efficiently. An ensemble of interacting molecular systems can help overcome the bottlenecks caused by large energy gaps between intermediate excited states involved in the relaxation process. By employing this strategy, catenanes composed of mechanically interlocked carbon nanostructures show great promise as new materials for achieving higher efficiencies in electronic devices. Herein, we perform nonadiabatic excited state molecular dynamics on different all-benzene catenanes. We observe that catenanes experience faster relaxations than individual units. Coupled catenanes present overlapping energy manifolds that include several electronic excited states spatially localized on the different moieties, increasing the density of states that ultimately improve the efficiency in the energy relaxation. This result suggests the use of catenanes as a viable strategy for tuning the internal conversion rates in a quest for their utilization for new optoelectronic applications.