Elucidating the role of quantum coherences in energy migration within biological and artificial multichromophoric antenna systems is the subject of an intense debate. It is also a practical matter because of the decisive implications for understanding the biological processes and engineering artificial materials for solar energy harvesting. A supramolecular rhodamine heterodimer on a DNA scaffold was suitably engineered to mimic the basic donor-acceptor unit of light-harvesting antennas. Ultrafast 2D electronic spectroscopic measurements allowed identifying clear features attributable to a coherent superposition of dimer electronic and vibrational states contributing to the coherent electronic charge beating between the donor and the acceptor. The frequency of electronic charge beating is found to be 970 cm (34 fs) and can be observed for 150 fs. Through the support of high level ab initio TD-DFT computations of the entire dimer, we established that the vibrational modes preferentially optically accessed do not drive subsequent coupling between the electronic states on the 600 fs of the experiment. It was thereby possible to characterize the time scales of the early time femtosecond dynamics of the electronic coherence built by the optical excitation in a large rigid supramolecular system at a room temperature in solution.

The nature of absorption bandshapes of dibenzoylmethanatoboron difluoride (DBMBF2) dye substituted in ortho-, meta-, and para-positions of the phenyl ring is investigated using DFT and TDDFT with the range-separated hybrid CAM-B3LYP functional and the 6-311G(d,p) basis set. The solvent effects are taken into account within the polarized continuum model. The vibronic bandshape is simulated using a time-dependent linear coupling model with a vertical gradient approach through an original code. For flexible chromophores, the spectra of individual conformers are summed up with Boltzmann factors. It is shown that the long-wavelength absorption bandshape of DBMBF2 derivatives is determined by three factors: the relative statistical weights of conformers with different electronic absorption patterns, the relative position and intensity of the second low-energy electronic transition, and the vibronic structure of individual electronic peaks. The latter is governed by the relationship between the hard vibrational modes, which contribute to vibronic progression, and soft modes, which provide broadening of the peaks. The simulated spectra of the dyes in the study are generally consistent with the available experimental data and explain the observed spectral features.

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