SWITCHING OF ELECTRON-TRANSFER DUE TO THE EXCITATION OF HIGH-FREQUENCY PHONONS

A switching mechanism of the electron transfer in an acceptor-donor complex is proposed exploiting an externally controlled change from the nuclear tunneling regime to the activated transfer. A model system is considered in detail consisting of a molecular dimer with two identical monomers and one intramolecular vibration. Assuming a sufficiently large vibrational frequency, only the zero-phonon state is occupied at room temperature and the transfer activation can be achieved by exciting a definite number of phonons. Results for the transfer dynamics are obtained by a numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation of the whole electron-phonon system. © 1990.