Photochemistry of Thymine in Protic Polar Nanomeric Droplets Using Electrostatic Embeding TD-DFT/MM

Thymine photochemistry is important for understanding DNA photodamage. In the gas phase, thymine undergoes a fast non-radiative decay from S2 to S1. In the S1 state, it gets trapped for several picoseconds until returning to the ground-state S0. Here, we explore the electrostatic effects of nanomeric droplets of methanol and water on the excited states of thymine. For this purpose, we develop and implement an electrostatic embedding TD-DFT/MM method based on a QM/MM coupling defined through electrostatic potential fitting charges. We show that both in methanol and water, the mechanism is similar to the gas phase. The solvent molecules participate in defining the branching plane of S0/S1 intersection and have a negligible effect on the S1/S2 intersection. Despite the wrong topology of the ground/excited state intersections, electrostatic embedding TD-DFT/MM allows for a fast exploration of the potential energy surfaces and a qualitative picture of the photophysics of thymine in solvent droplets.