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The competition between ultrafast intersystem crossing and internal conversion in benzene, toluene, and p-xylene is investigated with time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations. By exciting to S 2  out-of-plane symmetry breaking, distortions are activated at early times whereupon spin-forbidden intersystem crossing becomes (partly) allowed. Natural bond orbital analysis suggests that the pinnacle carbon atoms distorting from the aromatic plane change hybridization between the planar Franck-Condon geometry and the deformed (boat-shaped) S 2  equilibrium geometry. The effect is observed to increase in the presence of methyl-groups on the pinnacle carbon-atoms, where largest extents of σ and π orbital-mixing are observed. This is fully consistent with the time-resolved spectroscopy data: Toluene and  p- xylene show evidence for ultrafast triplet formation competing with internal conversion, while benzene appears to only decay via internal conversion within the singlet manifold. For toluene and  p -xylene, internal conversion to S 1  and intersystem crossing to T 3  occur within the time-resolution of our instrument. The receiver triplet state (T 3 ) is found to undergo internal conversion in the triplet manifold within ≈100–150 fs (toluene) or ≈180–200 fs (p-xylene) as demonstrated by matching rise and decay components of upper and lower triplet states. Overall, the effect of methylation is found to both increase the intersystem crossing probability and direct the molecular axis of the excited state dynamics.

Distortion dependent intersystem crossing: A femtosecond time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy study of benzene, toluene, and p-xylene