Photoinduced long-lived charge transfer excited states in AT-DNA strands

Abstract

The IR spectrum of a charge transfer (CT) excited electronic state in DNA has been computed for the first time, enabling assignment of the long-lived component of the transient IR spectrum of a d(AT)₉ single strand to an A → T CT state. Experimentally, the CT state lifetime is much shorter than in the double strand, and our calculations explain this result using Marcus Theory.