Mixed-Valence Molecular Unit for Quantum Cellular Automata: Beyond the Born-Oppenheimer Paradigm through the Symmetry-Assisted Vibronic Approach

In this article, we focus on the electron-vibrational problem of the tetrameric mixed-valence (MV) complexes proposed for implementation as four-dot molecular quantum cellular automata (mQCA).1 Although the adiabatic approximation explored in ref 2 is an appropriate tool for the qualitative analysis of the basic characteristics of mQCA, like vibronic trapping of the electrons encoding binary information and cell-cell response, it loses its accuracy providing moderate vibronic coupling and fails in the description of the discrete pattern of the vibronic levels. Therefore, a precise solution of the quantum-mechanical vibronic problem is of primary importance for the evaluation of the shapes of the electron transfer optical absorption bands and quantitative analysis of the main parameters of tetrameric quantum cells. Here, we go beyond the Born-Oppenheimer paradigm and present a solution of the quantum-mechanical pseudo Jahn-Teller (JT) vibronic problem in bielectronic MV species (exemplified by the tetra-ruthenium complexes) based on the recently developed symmetry-assisted approach.3,4 The mathematical approach to the vibronic eigenproblem takes into consideration the point symmetry basis, and therefore, the total matrix of the JT Hamiltonian is blocked to the maximum extent. The submatrices correspond to the irreducible representations (irreps) of the point group. With this tool, we also extend the theory of the mQCA cell beyond the limit of prevailing Coulomb repulsion in the electronic pair (adopted in ref 2), and therefore, the general pseudo-JT problems for spin-singlet (¹B_1g, 2¹A_1g, ¹B_2g, ¹E_u) ⊗ - (b_1g + e_u) and spin-triplet states (³A_2g, ³B_1g, 2³E_u) ⊗ - (b_1g + e_u) in a square-planar bielectronic system are solved. The obtained symmetry-adapted electron-vibrational functions are employed for the calculation of the profiles (shape functions) of the charge transfer absorption bands in the tetrameric MV complexes and for the discussion of the magnetic properties.