TD-DFT Performance for the Visible Absorption Spectra of Organic Dyes: Conventional versus Long-Range Hybrids

TLDR: By using a calibration curve, it is found that the LR functionals systematically allow an even more consistent description of the low-lying excited-state energies than the conventional hybrids.

Abstract: The π → π* transitions of more than 100 organic dyes from the major classes of chromophores (quinones, diazo, ...) have been investigated using a Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory (TD-DFT) procedure relying on large atomic basis sets and the systematic modeling of solvent effects. These calculations have been performed with pure (PBE) as well as conventional (PBE0) and long-range (LR) corrected hybrid functionals (LC-PBE, LC-ωPBE, and CAM-B3LYP). The computed wavelengths are systematically guided by the percentage of exact exchange included at intermediate interelectronic distance, i.e., the λmax value always follows the PBE > PBE0 > CAM-B3LYP > LC-PBE > LC-ωPBE > HF sequence. The functional giving the best estimates of the experimental transition energies may vary, but PBE0 and CAM-B3LYP tend to outperform all other approaches. The latter functional is shown to be especially adequate to treat molecules with delocalized excited states. The mean absolute error provided by PBE0 is 22 nm (0.14 eV) wit...