Polarizable model of water with field-dependent polarization

The polarizable charge-on-spring model of water with three Gaussian charges developed by the present authors [A. Baranyai and P. T. Kiss, J. Chem. Phys. 133, 144109 (2010)] was studied. We introduced an analytic function for the polarizability in terms of the local electric field. Following theoretical suggestions, the polarizability decreases from its experimental gas-phase value, in our approach, toward a high-field threshold. Using this modified polarizability, we reparameterized the model by calculating its dielectric constant and obtained good estimates of density and internal energy for ambient water, hexagonal ice, and water cluster properties. Mimicked by the new model, we studied liquid water under the impact of homogeneous static electric field in the rage of 0-2.5 V/?. Both the density and the average dipole moment increase with the strength of the electric field. However, the internal energy shows a minimum at ~0.35 V/?. At this field strength, the model starts ordering into a crystal structure. At higher fields the liquid forms a crystalline structure which is a special version of cubic ice.     

A polarizable model for ethylene oxide

A series of interaction models for ethylene oxide are developed for use in molecular simulation of the thermal properties of both the gas and liquid phases. While it is possible to develop nonpolarizable models to accurately generate either the gas or liquid properties separately, it was not possible to do so using a single model for both phases. A polarizable, rigid all-atom model was developed that reproduces the temperature dependence of the second virial coefficient B(T) and the pressure of the liquid at ambient conditions. The model consists of Lennard-Jones and Coulomb interactions between intermolecular atomic sites plus a scalar polarizability located at the midpoint of the line joining the carbon sites. The electrostatic charges and the polarizability are set to match the experimentally determined dipole and quadrupole moments and the molecular polarizability.     

Polarization response of water and methanol investigated by a polarizable force field and density functional theory calculations: implications for charge transfer

Electronic polarization response in hydrogen-bond clusters and liquid configurations of water and methanol has been studied by density functional theory (DFT) and by a polarizable force field based on the chemical potential equalization (CPE) principle. It has been shown that an accurate CPE parametrization based on isolated molecular properties is not completely transferable to strongly interacting hydrogen-bond clusters with discrepancies between CPE and DFT overall dipole moments as large as 15%. This is due to the lack of intermolecular charge transfer in the standard CPE implementation. A CPE scheme for evaluating the amount of transferred charge has been developed. The charge transfer parameters are determined with the aid of accurate DFT calculations using only hydrogen-bond dimer configurations. The amount of transferred charge is found to be of the order of few hundredths of electrons, as already found in recent studies on hydrogen-bond systems. The parameters of the model are then used, without further adjustment, to different hydrogen-bond clustered forms of water and methanol (oligomer and liquid configurations). In agreement with different approaches proposed in literature for studying charge transfer effects, the transferred charge in hydrogen-bond dimers is found to decrease exponentially with the hydrogen-bond distance. When allowance is made for charge transfer according to the proposed scheme, the CPE dipole moments are found to reproduce satisfactorily the DFT data.     

The effects of charge transfer on the properties of liquid water

A method for treating charge transfer interactions in classical potential models is developed and applied to water. In this method, a discrete amount of charge is transferred for each hydrogen bond formed. It is designed to be simple to implement, to be applicable to a variety of potential models, and to satisfy various physical requirements. The method does not transfer charge at large intramolecular distances, it does not result in a conductive liquid, and it can be easily parameterized to give the correct amount of charge transfer. Two charge transfer models are developed for a polarizable and a non-polarizable potential. The models reproduce many of the properties of liquid water, including the structure, the diffusion constant, and thermodynamic properties over a range of temperatures.     

A non-polarizable model of water that yields the dielectric constant and the density anomalies of the liquid: TIP4Q

A four-site rigid water model is presented, whose parameters are fitted to reproduce the experimental static dielectric constant at 298 K, the maximum density of liquid water and the equation of state at low pressures. The model has a positive charge on each of the three atomic nuclei and a negative charge located at the bisector of the HOH bending angle. This charge distribution allows increasing the molecular dipole moment relative to four-site models with only three charges and improves the liquid dielectric constant at different temperatures. Several other properties of the liquid and of ice Ih resulting from numerical simulations with the model are in good agreement with experimental values over a wide range of temperatures and pressures. Moreover, the model yields the minimum density of supercooled water at 190 K and the minimum thermal compressibility at 310 K, close to the experimental values. A discussion is presented on the structural changes of liquid water in the supercooled region where the derivative of density with respect to temperature is a maximum.     

Charge-on-spring polarizable water models revisited: from water clusters to liquid water to ice

The properties of two improved versions of charge-on-spring (COS) polarizable water models (COS/G2 and COS/G3) that explicitly include nonadditive polarization effects are reported. In COS models, the polarization is represented via a self-consistently induced dipole moment consisting of a pair of separated charges. A previous polarizable water model (COS/B2), upon which the improved versions are based, was developed by Yu, Hansson, and van Gunsteren. To improve the COS/B2 model, which overestimated the dielectric permittivity, one additional virtual atomic site was used to reproduce the water monomer quadrupole moments besides the water monomer dipole moment in the gas phase. The molecular polarizability, residing on the virtual atomic site, and Lennard-Jones parameters for oxygen-oxygen interactions were varied to reproduce the experimental values for the heat of vaporization and the density of liquid water at room temperature and pressure. The improved models were used to study the properties of liquid water at various thermodynamic states as well as gaseous water clusters and ice. Overall, good agreement is obtained between simulated properties and those derived from experiments and ab initio calculations. The COS/G2 and COS/G3 models may serve as simple, classical, rigid, polarizable water models for the study of organic solutes and biopolymers. Due to its simplicity, COS type of polarization can straightforwardly be used to introduce explicit polarization into (bio)molecular force fields.     

Molecular dynamics simulations of liquid methanol and methanol-water mixtures with polarizable models

A polarizable model for simulation of liquid methanol, compatible with the COS/G2 water model, has been developed using the Charge-on-Spring (COS) technique. The model consists of three point charges, with one polarizable center on the oxygen atom. The Lennard-Jones parameters on the oxygen atom together with the molecular polarizability were varied to reproduce the experimental heat of vaporization and density of liquid methanol at ambient conditions. We examined the energies of various methanol dimers in the gas phase and compared them with values obtained from ab initio calculations. The model was then used to study the thermodynamic, dynamic, structural, and dielectric properties of liquid methanol as well as of a methanol-water mixture. A microscopic picture of the structure of pure liquid methanol and of the methanol-water mixture is provided. Good agreement was found between the results from our model simulations and available experimental and ab initio calculation data. In particular, the experimental dielectric permittivity of 32 could be reproduced, which had been shown to be difficult when using nonpolarizable models.     

Computer simulation of electron transfer processes across the electrode|electrolyte interface: a treatment of solvent and electrode polarizability

A polarizable molecular dynamics model for adiabatic electron transfer across the electrode|electrolyte interface is presented. The electronic polarizability of the water and of the metal electrode is accounted for by a dynamical fluctuating charge algorithm, image charges, and the Ewald summation adapted for a conducting interface. The effects of the solvent electronic polarizability are studied by computing the diabatic and adiabatic free energy curves for both polarizable and non-polarizable water models. This represents the first effort to compute the adiabatic free energy curves from simulation for a fully polarizable electrochemical system.     

A novel approach for designing simple point charge models for liquid water with three interaction sites

A simultaneous improvement of the diffusion and dielectric properties of the simple point charge (SPC) model for liquid water appears to be very difficult with conventional reparametrization of the commonly used Lennard-Jones and Coulomb interaction functions and without including a self-energy correction in the effective pair-potential as is done in the SPC/E model. Here, a different approach to circumvent this problem is presented. A short-range interaction term, which corrects the oxygen-oxygen energy at small distances by small amounts of energy, was introduced in the nonbonded interaction function. This additional force-field term allows to derive new parameter sets for SPC-like water models that yield better agreement with experimental data on liquid water. Based on previous investigations of the force-field parameter dependence of the water properties of SPC-like models, the necessary parameter changes to obtain a lower diffusion coefficient and a larger dielectric permittivity were specified and accordingly six new models were developed. They all represent an improvement over SPC in terms of structural and diffusional properties, four of them show better dielectric properties also. One model, SPC/S, has been characterized in more detail, and represents most properties of liquid water better than SPC while avoiding the larger discrepancies with experimental values regarding density, thermal compressibility, energy, and free energy of the SPC/E model. We conclude that the use of a simple, short-ranged additional oxygen-oxygen interaction term makes a simultaneous improvement of the diffusion coefficient and the dielectric properties of water feasible.     

Thermodynamic properties of water in the lattice gas model with сonsideration of the vibrational motions of molecules

A molecular model developed earlier for a polar fluid within the lattice gas model is supplemented by considering the vibrational motions of molecules using water as an example. A combination of point dipole and Lennard-Jones potentials from SPC parametrization is chosen as the force field model for the molecule. The main thermodynamic properties of liquid water (density, internal energy, and entropy) are studied as functions of temperature. There is qualitative agreement between the calculation results and the experimental data. Ways of refining the molecular theory are discussed.     

A simple, efficient polarizable coarse-grained water model for molecular dynamics simulations

The development of coarse-grained (CG) models that correctly represent the important features of compounds is essential to overcome the limitations in time scale and system size currently encountered in atomistic molecular dynamics simulations. Most approaches reported in the literature model one or several molecules into a single uncharged CG bead. For water, this implicit treatment of the electrostatic interactions, however, fails to mimic important properties, e.g., the dielectric screening. Therefore, a coarse-grained model for water is proposed which treats the electrostatic interactions between clusters of water molecules explicitly. Five water molecules are embedded in a spherical CG bead consisting of two oppositely charged particles which represent a dipole. The bond connecting the two particles in a bead is unconstrained, which makes the model polarizable. Experimental and all-atom simulated data of liquid water at room temperature are used for parametrization of the model. The experimental density and the relative static dielectric permittivity were chosen as primary target properties. The model properties are compared with those obtained from experiment, from clusters of simple-point-charge water molecules of appropriate size in the liquid phase, and for other CG water models if available. The comparison shows that not all atomistic properties can be reproduced by a CG model, so properties of key importance have to be selected when coarse graining is applied. Yet, the CG model reproduces the key characteristics of liquid water while being computationally 1-2 orders of magnitude more efficient than standard fine-grained atomistic water models.     

Revisiting the hexane-water interface via molecular dynamics simulations using nonadditive alkane-water potentials

We present results addressing properties of a polarizable force field for hexane based on the fluctuating charge (FQ) formalism and developed in conjunction with the Chemistry at Harvard Molecular Mechanics (CHARMM) potential function. Properties of bulk neat hexane, its liquid-vapor interface, and its interface with a polarizable water model (TIP4P-FQ) are discussed. The FQ model is compared to a recently modified alkane model, C27r, also based on the CHARMM potential energy function. With respect to bulk properties, both models predict bulk density within 1%; the FQ model predicts the liquid vaporization enthalpy within 2%, while the C27r force field underestimates the property by roughly 20% (and in this sense reflects the quality of the C27r force field across the spectrum of linear and branched alkanes). The FQ hexane model realistically captures the dielectric properties of the bulk in terms of a dielectric constant of 1.94, in excellent agreement with experimental values in the range of 1.9-2.02. This behavior is also in conformity with a recent polarizable alkane model based on Drude oscillators. Furthermore, the bulk dielectric is essentially captured in the infinite frequency, or optical, dielectric contribution. The FQ model is in this respect a more realistic force field for modeling lipid bilayer interiors for which most current state-of-the-art force fields do not accurately capture the dielectric environment. The molecular polarizability of the FQ model is 11.79 A3, in good agreement with the range of experimental and ab initio values. In contrast to FQ models of polar solvents such as alcohols and water, there was no need to scale gas-phase polarizabilities in order to avoid polarization catastrophes in the pure bulk. In terms of the liquid-vapor and liquid-liquid interfaces, the FQ model displays a rich orientational structure of alkane and water in the respective interfacial systems, in general conforming with earlier simulation studies of such interfaces. The FQ force field shows a marked deviation in the interfacial dipole potentials computed from the charge densities averaged over simulation trajectories. At the liquid-vapor interface, the FQ model predicts a potential drop of -178.71 mV in contrast to the C27r estimate of -433.80 mV. For the hexane-water interface, the FQ force field predicts a dipole potential drop of -379.40 mV in contrast to the C27r value of -105.42 mV. Although the surface dipole potential predicted by the FQ model is roughly 3.5 times that predicted by the C27r potential, it is consistent with reported experimental potentials across solvated lipid bilayers in the range of 400-600 mV.     

Water polarizability in condensed phase: ab initio evaluation by cluster approach

The polarizability of a water molecule in liquid is evaluated via ab initio and density functional calculations for water clusters. This work has considerably improved our previous effort [J Chem Phys 1999, 110, 11987] to attain quantitative accuracy for polarizability. The calculations revealed that the water polarizability in the liquid is reduced from that in the gaseous phase by 7-9%. These results suggest significant implications for polarizable water models.     

Theoretical study on photophysical and charge transport properties of 1,6-bis(2-hydroxyphenol)pyridylboron bis(4-n-butylphenyl)phenyleneamine compound

The absorption and emission spectra of 1,6-bis(2-hydroxyphenol)pyridylboron bis(4-n-butylphenyl)phenyleneamine were systematically calculated by time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) level. These results are in good agreement with experiment ones. The charge transport properties were investigated within the framework of the charge hopping model. The results show that 1,6-bis(2-hydroxyphenyl)pyridineboron ((dppy)BF) functions as a electron transport group and triphenylamine as a hole transport group; the charge transport ability for the two types of carriers is not only high but also nearly balanced, which explains why it is an efficient single-layer electroluminescent device. On the basis of the large second-order polarizability value and high transparency, this compound has the possibility to be an excellent second-order nonlinear optical material. The main origin of this large second-order nonlinear optical response is charge transfer from the triphenylamine group to (dppy)BF.     

Effect of introducing additional charge centers and allowing for polarizability in the methanol model on the reproducibility of physicochemical properties

We investigate the effect of introducing additional charge centers and a Drude oscillator on the hydrogen atom of the OH group on model reproductions of the properties of methanol. A model with four additional charge centers and a Drude oscillator on the hydrogen atom of the OH group is developed, along with a model without additional charge centers and a Drude oscillator on the hydrogen atom. The former model correctly describes the dielectric properties of methanol and reproduces the electrostatic potential of the molecule. Based on our analysis of the model reproduction of the experimental properties of methanol, we suggest the Lennard-Jones potential (6–12) is poorly suited for describing models in which Drude oscillators reproduce polarizability.     

Theoretical study on the second-order nonlinear optical properties and reorganization energy of silafluorenes and spirobisilafluorenes derivatives

The electronic absorption and emission spectra, second-order polarizability and reorganization energy of the twenty silafluorenes and spirobisilafluorenes derivatives have been studied at the density functional theory level. The results show that the second-order polarizability (β) increases with increase in the number of the branches due to cooperative enhancement of the charge transfer, whereas the reorganization energy (λ) follows the opposite trend for the studied compounds. The properties (β and λ) of the compounds at the 3, 6-positions substitution are much better than those of compounds at the 2, 7-positions substitution. The effects of donor/acceptor (D/A) substitution and different spiroatoms (silicon or carbon) on second-order polarizability and reorganization energy are also discussed. It is noted that the charge transport properties can be tuned by changing the donor/acceptor (D/A) substitution, and the acceptor substitution can greatly reduce the reorganization energy. The electronic absorption spectra show that all studied compounds can meet the requirement of nonlinear optical (NLO) transparency. Thus, increasing the number of branches and acceptor substitution can remarkably enhance performance of this kind of compounds. Based on larger β, smaller λ and excellent optical transparency, this kind of compounds have a possibility to be excellent second-order NLO or charge transport materials.     

A transferable classical potential for the water molecule

We developed a new model for the water molecule which contains only three Gaussian charges. Using the gas-phase geometry the dipole moment of the molecule matches, the quadrupole moment closely approximates the experimental values. The negative charge is connected by a harmonic spring to its gas-phase position. The polarized state is identified by the equality of the intermolecular electrostatic force and the spring force acting on the negative charge. In each timestep the instantaneous position of the massless negative charge is determined by iteration. Using the technique of Ewald summation, we derived expressions for the potential energy, the forces, and the pressure for Gaussian charges. The only properties to be fitted are the half-width values of the Gaussian charge distributions and the parameters of the nonelectrostatic repulsion-attraction potential. We determined the properties of gas-phase clusters up to six molecules, the internal energy and density of ambient water and hexagonal ice. We calculated the equilibrium density of ice VII as a function of pressure. As an additional test, we calculated the pair-correlation function, the isotherm compressibility, the heat capacity, and the self-diffusion coefficients for ambient water. As far as we know, this is the first classical model of water which is able to estimate both ends of the phase diagram, the high pressure ice VII, and the gas clusters of water with excellent accuracy.     

Intermolecular polarizability dynamics of aqueous formamide liquid mixtures studied by molecular dynamics simulations

A molecular dynamics simulation study is presented for the relaxation of the polarizability anisotropy in liquid mixtures of formamide and water, using a dipolar induction scheme that involves the intrinsic polarizability and first hyperpolarizability tensors of the molecules, and the dipole-quadrupole polarizability of water species. The long time diffusive decay of the collective polarizability anisotropy correlations exhibits a substantial slowing down as the formamide mole fraction increases in the mixture. The diffusive times for the polarizability relaxation obtained from the authors' simulations are in good agreement with optical Kerr effect experimental data, and they are found to correlate nearly linearly with the estimated mean lifetimes of the hydrogen bonds within the mixture, suggesting that the relaxation of the hydrogen bond network is responsible to some extent for the collective relaxation of the polarizability anisotropy of the mixture. The short time behavior of the polarizability anisotropy relaxation was investigated by computing the nuclear response function, R(t), which is very rapidly dominated by the formamide contribution as it is added to water, due to the much larger polarizability anisotropy of formamide molecules compared to that of water. Several contributions to the Raman spectrum were also analyzed as a function of composition, and the dynamical origin of the different bands was determined.