A different view on the deactivation process of 3-hydroxy-salicylidene-methylamine system

Schiff bases stand out as a highly significant class of photochromic materials with widespread applications. The exploration of their photochromic mechanisms has garnered substantial interest over the past decades. In this work, we investigated the photochromic mechanism of 3-hydroxy-salicylidene methylamine (3-OH-SMA) by high-level electronic structure calculations and on-the-fly excited state dynamics simulations. Our investigation revealed the identification of three minimum energy conical intersections between S1 and S0 states, while only the one characterized by the central C = N bond twisting motion was involved in the deactivation process. This finding contrasts with previous reports, suggesting that the excited state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) process was the main reaction channel in 3-OH-SMA. The proposed new decay mechanism provides valuable theoretical insights, paving the way for the further enhancement or rational design of photochromic materials.