Potential use of small basis set on the calculations of electronic properties of some four-membered heterocycles: a conformational study

The potential use of small basis sets upon a low level of theory was studied on the calculations of electronic properties (dipole moment, static polarisability and static hyperpolarisabilities) of a series of 16 four-membered heterocycles with an exocyclic double bond at the position 3 (1–16). First, the calculations were performed within the Hartree–Fock (HF) approximation using 6-31G, 6-31G(d,p) and 6-31+G(d,p) as basis sets for the different conformational states of each molecule, and the results obtained were compared with the MP2/6-31+G(d,p) results reported. In the second place, in order to know the real potential of HF calculations, these were compared with those calculated using larger approaches such as MP2/6-311+G(d,p), MP2/aug-cc-pVDZ, CCS/6-311+G(d,p), CCS/aug-cc-pVDZ, CCS/aug-cc-pVTZ, CCSD/6-31+G(d) and CCSD/cc-pVDZ, taken into account only the planar and equilibrium geometries of each molecules. The HF approaches permit us to obtain a good qualitative representation of the dipole moment as a function of puckering angle in comparison with MP2, CCS and CCSD levels for all tested molecules. However, only HF/6-31+G(d,p) provides quantitative values of dipole moment for the heterocycles 1, 5 and 13 in comparison with MP2, CCS and CCSD levels. On the other hand, the polarisability and hyperpolarisabilities were quite sensitive to the quality of level of theory and basis sets. In particular, HF/6-31+G(d,p) predicted a representative approximation of alpha for the molecule 16 in comparison with larger methods as MP2/aug-cc-pVDZ, CCS/aug-cc-pVDZ and CCS/aug-cc-pVTZ, while a detailed analysis showed that HF can be used in the calculation of alpha for the molecules 3, 7, 11 and 15, but it requires the use of extended basis sets. Also, HF/6-31+G(d,p) predicted values of beta very similar to those calculated at the MP2 and CCSD levels used, for the planar and equilibrium geometry of the molecules 10 and 14. Furthermore, HF/6-31+G(d,p) described a representative dependence of this property with the puckering angle for the heterocycles 9, 10 and 14, compared with the MP2 curves.