Excited state carbene formation from UV irradiated diazomethane

The laser flash photolysis process of diazomethane has been studied by using a real time propagation time-dependent density functional theory (RTP-TDDFT) combined with molecular dynamics. The activation energy barrier for disintegrating diazomethane into nitrogen (N(2)) and carbene (CH(2)) molecules significantly decreases in the electronic excited S(1) state compared to that in the S(0) ground state. Furthermore, the produced carbene molecule can be in the electronic excited state of (1)CH(2) ((1)B(1)) instead of the lowest state among singlet states (1)CH(2) ((1)A(1)), which is evident in the wave function characteristics of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) throughout the disintegration. This is regarded as the initial stage of the rearrangement in the excited state (RIES), the evidence of which has been given by experiments in the past decade. In the RIES mechanism scheme, we suggest that the photoreaction in the S(1) state contributes considerably to the photochemistry of carbene formation. The passing near the S(1)/S(0) conical intersection, which allows the transition to ground state diazomethane producing the lowest singlet state carbene molecule, is considered a rare event from our molecular dynamics, although this has been regarded as the dominant mechanism in previous theoretical studies.