Electronically Excited Solute Described by RISM Approach Coupled with Multireference Perturbation Theory: Vertical Excitation Energies of Bioimaging Probes

For theoretically studying molecules with fluorescence in the near-infrared region, high-accuracy determination of state energy level is required for meaningful analyses since the spectra of interest are of very narrow energy range. In particular, these molecules are in many cases handled in solution; therefore, consideration of the solvation effect is essential upon calculation together with the electronic structure of the excited state. Earlier studies showed that they cannot be described with conventional methods such as PCM-TD-DFT, yielding results far from experimental data. Here, we have developed a new method by combining a solvation theory based on statistical mechanics (RISM) and a multireference perturbation theory (CASPT2) with the extension of the density matrix renormalization group reference states for calculating the photochemical properties of near-infrared molecules and have obtained higher-accuracy prediction.