Interference among Multiple Vibronic Modes in Two-Dimensional Electronic Spectroscopy

Vibronic coupling between electronic and vibrational states in molecules plays a critical role in most photo-induced phenomena. Many key details about a molecule’s vibronic coupling are hidden in linear spectroscopic measurements, and therefore nonlinear optical spectroscopy methods such as two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy (2D ES) have become more broadly adopted. A single vibrational mode of a molecule leads to a Franck–Condon progression of peaks in a 2D spectrum. Each peak oscillates as a function of the waiting time, and Fourier transformation can produce a spectral slice known as a ‘beating map’ at the oscillation frequency. The single vibrational mode produces a characteristic peak structure in the beating map. Studies of single modes have limited utility, however, because most molecules have numerous vibrational modes that couple to the electronic transition. Interactions or interference among the modes may lead to complicated peak patterns in each beating map. Here, we use lineshape-function theory to simulate 2D ES arising from a system having multiple vibrational modes. The simulations reveal that the peaks in each beating map are affected by all of the vibrational modes and therefore do not isolate a single mode, which was anticipated.