De novo prediction of ground state multiplicity and structural isomerism for transition metal complexes

Prediction of the ground state geometries and multiplicities for 33 transition metal tetrachlorides has been carried out using two different levels of quantum mechanics: semiempirical and density functional theory. All data regarding geometry and spin state provided by both computational methods were compared with experimental data when available. The calculations were performed for all possible spin multiplicities. The most important geometries for coordination number four (tetrahedral, square-planar, dodecahedral, and disphenoidal), as well as less symmetric structural isomers, were evaluated. A match between both computational methods in terms of predicted ground state multiplicity and geometry was found for 26 species, which translated into almost 80% agreement. Even though the PM3(tm) geometry prediction protocol involved more steps for isolating a feasible global minimum, the aggregate of these calculations was still orders of magnitude faster than DFT calculations using extended basis sets. The calculations indicate that caution is needed in the application of the PM3(tm) method to very high-spin transition metal complexes, but point to the suitability of very rapid semiempirical methods for reliable prediction of structural and ‘spin’ isomers, and hence their use in an efficient de novo design protocol for transition metal complexes.     

On some ways of modifying semiempirical quantum chemical methods

The problems of semiempirical quantum chemical calculations of (a) spin densities in paramagnetic organometallics, (b) hydrogen bonds, and (c) bond energies and the structure of transition-metal compounds are discussed. Some modifications of the existing semiempirical quantum chemical method are presented. An extended NDDO approximation has been developed. This scheme includes explicit symmetric orthogonalization of the core Hamiltonian and the use of Hellmann's effective core potential for core-electron interaction. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Semiempirical UNO-CAS and UNO-CI: method and applications in nanoelectronics

Unrestricted Natural Orbital-Complete Active Space Configuration Interaction, abbreviated as UNO-CAS, has been implemented for NDDO-based semiempirical molecular-orbital (MO) theory. A computationally more economic technique, UNO-CIS, in which we use a configuration interaction (CI) calculation with only single excitations (CIS) to calculate excited states, has also been implemented and tested. The class of techniques in which unrestricted natural orbitals (UNOs) are used as the reference for CI calculations is denoted UNO-CI. Semiempirical UNO-CI gives good results for the optical band gaps of organic semiconductors such as polyynes and polyacenes, which are promising materials for nanoelectronics. The results of these semiempirical UNO-CI techniques are generally in better agreement with experiment than those obtained with the corresponding conventional semiempirical CI methods and comparable to or better than those obtained with far more computationally expensive methods such as time-dependent density-functional theory. We also show that symmetry breaking in semiempirical UHF calculations is very useful for predicting the diradical character of organic compounds in the singlet spin state.     

Studies on the structural unit and suspending terminal groups in the quasi-one-dimensional periodic system

Quasi-one-dimensional periodic systems were investigated by the new proposed extrapolation method. The effect of the selection of the different structural units and their spin states on the periodic system was also studied. A quantum chemical calculation investigation of a 28 quasi-one-dimensional periodic system with MNDO (UHF ) and EHMO /ASED –EHCO /ASED was undertaken. Quantum chemical calculation results with the MNDO (UHF ) method showed that the proposed new method could be applied in the situation of the more precise semiempirical method. The selection of the different structural units and their spin states do not affect the extrapolated structural unit energy. The energy of suspending terminal group is generally higher for those with a higher bond order. The interaction energy between the suspending terminal groups generally decreases with the chain length. Comparison between the extrapolation results of EHMO /ASED and those from the crystal orbital calculation of EHCO /ASED indicates their equivalence, thus confirming the validity of the proposed method. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

On the relation between conformational changes and electronic structure defects in polypyrrole

Using the semiempirical quantum-chemical AM1 method, the dependence of geometry and electronic structure on the torsion angle δ between neighbouring pyrrole rings of quaterpyrrole in various charge and spin states is investigated. The magnitudes of changes in the electronic structure of polypyrrole caused by geometrical changes of the chain may be comparable with those caused by charge and spin fluctuations. A limited amount of negative charge may be spontaneously stabilized on the polypyrrole chain due to chain deformations caused by solid state influences without any charged dopants. Charge fluctuations are most probably concentrated at nitrogen atoms. N—C bonds are less dependent on δ variations as well as on charge and spin perturbations than C—C bonds.     

Design of high-spin molecules incorporating charged plus neutral spin centers

A series of diradicals comprised of m-phenylene exchange coupling units and spin-bearing centers of the same (homo-spin) and different (hetero-spin) types were compared, using the semiempirical AM1-CI molecular orbital method. Two meta-coupled neutral (or charged) hetero-spin centers result in a high-spin ground state, while coupling of one neutral and one charged spin center gives rise to a low-spin ground state in the cases studied. The latter result is ascribed to the large splitting of partially occupied molecular orbitals by substitution, leading to dominance of purely ionic resonance structures in the singlet states of the monocharged “hetero-spin” cases. Effects of substitution and HOMO–LUMO splitting may be evaluated by computational methods to identify systems where resonance effects may override spin parity effects. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Heteroatom Chem 9:161–167, 1998     

Structural Changes in 2‐Diarylthiophene‐Substituted Starburst Compounds upon Charging: A Theoretical and Spectroelectrochemical Study

The role of charging in structural changes of 2‐diarylaminothiophene‐substituted starburst compounds is clarified by combining theoretical and spectroelectrochemical studies. A systematic and comparative theoretical calculation based on density functional theory and semiempirical Austin Model 1 (AM1) calculations is performed on the neutral and charged states of four model tris(5‐diarylamino‐5‐thienyl)‐terminated starburst compounds with a central triphenylamine and 1,3,5‐triphenylbenzene moiety. Our results indicate that the charging of molecules leads to structural changes by quinoid‐type components mostly on the dendrimers terminated by phenothiazinyl fragments. Based on the optimal geometries, the spectroscopic properties were calculated using the semiempirical Zerner’s intermediate neglect overlap method. The presented theoretical results and the spin electron distributions of charged states and their spectra are supported by the spectroelectrochemical observations caused by the different electron localization within the studied molecules after charging. The satisfactory agreement between theoretical electronic transitions and experimental values indicates that a rational design of tunable molecular layers in organic devices based on the starburst compounds described is possible.     

An investigation of hemibenzopinacolate radicals used in the synthesis of block-copolymers: ESR measurements and semiempirical calculations

Hemibenzopinacolate radicals may be incorporated in a polymer chain and the latter used as a macromolecular initiator. Kinetics of polymerization are strongly dependent on the substitution of the pinacolate. A large family of substituted (CH₃)₃SiOC(C₆H₅)₂ radicals has been synthesized and studied by electron spin resonance (ESR) and semiempirical molecular orbital calculations. ESR spectra are well resolved and, except for one derivative, allow an unambiguous determination of the hyperfine coupling splitting (HFS) constants. The ground state properties have been calculated within different approximations, namely MNDO, AM1 and PM3 for the geometry optimization and INDO for spin density. Geometries obtained within AM1 and PM3 approximations are satisfactory. The HFS constants evaluated using McConnell type relations and spin densities are in a quite good agreement with the experimental ones. It turns out that the effect of substitution on kinetics of polymerization cannot be attributed to any drastic change in the charge distribution.     

Electrochemical and microsomal production of free radicals from 1,2,5-oxadiazole N-oxide as potential antiprotozoal drugs

The electron spin resonance (ESR) spectra of free radicals obtained by electrolytic or microsomal reduction of several potential antiprotozoal 1,2,5-oxadiazoles were characterized and analyzed. Ab initio molecular orbital calculations were performed to obtain the optimized geometries and the theoretical hyperfine constant was carried out using ZINDO semiempirical methodology. Density functional theory was used to rationalize the reduction potentials of these compounds.     

Spin–orbit coupling in the intersystem crossing of the ring-opened oxirane biradical

The intersystem crossing (ISC ) between the lowest triplet and singlet states occurring in the reaction of atomic oxygen with ethylene was studied. The importance of spin–orbit coupling (SOC ) in oxirane biradicals (?R′R″—CRR*—?) is stressed through calculations where the spin–orbit matrix elements over the full Breit–Pauli SOC operator has been obtained in the singlet–triplet crossing region. The calculations are performed with a multiconfigurational linear response approach, in which the spin–orbit couplings are obtained from triplet response functions using differently correlated singlet-reference-state wave functions. Computational results confirm earlier semiempirical predictions of the spin–orbit coupling as an important mechanism behind the ring opening of oxiranes and addition of oxygen O(³P) atoms to alkenes. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

两个典型氧桥三核铁(Ⅲ)配合物[Fe3O(O2CCH2OC6H5)6(3H2O)]和[Fe3O(TIEO)2(O2CPh)2Cl3]的局域自旋和磁性质的理论探讨

用从头算波函数(UHF或UDFT波函数)代替ZILSH方法中的半经验波函数得到了ABLSH方法，接着用该方法研究了两个典型氧桥三核铁(Ⅲ)配合物[Fe₃O(O₂CCH₂OC₆H₅)₆(3H₂O)]和[Fe₃O(TIEO)₂(O₂CPh)₂Cl₃]的局域自旋和磁性质。通过计算得到的局域自旋结果和前人的具有可比性，同时所得的磁交换耦合常数和实验值很吻合。该方法可作为研究海森堡型磁性系统(HM)的新工具。     

Comparing the electronic properties of the low-spin cyano-ferric [Fe(N4)(Cys)] active sites of superoxide reductase and p450cam using ENDOR spectroscopy and DFT calculations

Superoxide reductase (SOR) and P450 enzymes contain similar [Fe(N)4(SCys)] active sites and, although they catalyze very different reactions, are proposed to involve analogous low-spin (hydro)peroxo-Fe(III) intermediates in their respective mechanisms that can be modeled by cyanide binding. The equatorial FeN4 ligation by four histidine ligands in CN-SOR and the heme in CN-P450cam is directly compared by 14N ENDOR, while the axial Fe-CN and Fe-S bonding is probed by 13C ENDOR of the cyanide ligand and 1Hbeta ENDOR measurements to determine the spin density delocalization onto the cysteine sulfur. There are small, but notable, differences in the bonding between Fe(III) and its ligands in the two enzymes. The ENDOR measurements are complemented by DFT computations that support the semiempirical equation used to compute spin densities on metal-coordinated cysteinyl and shed light on bonding changes as the Fe-C-N linkage bends. They further indicate that H bonds to the cysteinyl thiolate sulfur ligand reduce the spin density on the sulfur in both active sites to a degree that exceeds the difference induced by the alternative sets of "in-plane" nitrogen ligands.     

Spin coupling in shake-up processes

The treatment of spin coupling in calculations of shake-up states in core photoelectron processes is reviewed and the problems arising when the equivalent core approximation is used to model the core hole are discussed. A method for approximating the intensity of the triplet-coupled doublet state in semiempirical calculations is proposed. The intensities of the triplet-coupled doublet states in N₂, formaldehyde, and aniline core ionization spectra are calculated. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quant Chem 63: 189–196, 1997     

Isolation and characterization of four isomers of a C(60) bisadduct with a TTF derivative. Study of their radical ions.

A family of triads composed of C(60) attached by a rigid spacer to two identical TTF moieties has been synthesized, and some of the isomers have been isolated and characterized by UV-vis spectroscopy, LDI-TOF-MS, and HMBC NMR spectroscopy. AM1 semiempirical calculations of the dipolar moments and the heats of formation of the different isomers have been carried out in order to verify their assignments. Oxidation and reduction of the triads affords the derived radical ion systems, TTF(+*)-C(60)-TTF(+*) and TTF-C(60)(-*)-TTF, which were studied by EPR spectroscopy. Spin density distributions of these radical cations and radical anions show that the unpaired electron is located mainly on the TTF and fullerene moieties, respectively. However, while the EPR signals obtained from the radical cations are very similar for all the isomers, the structured signals observed for the radical anions arising from the coupling of the unpaired electron with the hydrogen atoms of the methylene bridges in the spacer show that there is a strong influence of the isomerism on the spin distribution. Importantly, the theoretical calculations of the spin density distributions of the radical anions fit well with the experimental EPR results.     

Evaluation of a new procedure for quantum-chemical estimates of constants of isotropic hyperfine coupling with protons in free radicals

A new procedure for quantum-chemical estimates of the constants of isotropic hyperfine coupling (IHFC) with protons using the orbital spin populations calculated in the basis set of symmetrically orthogonalized (according to Löwdin) atomic orbitals is tested taking 16 well-studied simplest π-electron and σ-electron radicals as examples. The most probable reasons for and possible ways of correcting large deviations of calculated IHFC constants from experimental values are considered. The efficiency of the semiempirical MNDORU scheme, which makes it possible to consistently estimate the delocalization and spin-polarization contributions to the constants of IHFC with protons in free radicals, is demonstrated.     

Calculation of argon trimer rovibrational spectrum

Rovibrational spectra of Ar3 are computed for total angular momenta up to J=6 using row-orthonormal hyperspherical coordinates and an expansion of the wave function on hyperspherical harmonics. The sensitivity of the spectra to the two-body potential and to the three-body corrections is analyzed. First, the best available semiempirical pair potential (HFDID1) is compared with our recent ab initio two-body potential. The ab initio vibrational energies are typically 1-2 cm-1 higher than the semiempirical ones, which is related to the slightly larger dissociation energy of the semiempirical potential. Then, the Axilrod-Teller asymptotic expansion of the three-body correction is compared with our newly developed ab initio three-body potential. The difference is found smaller than 0.3 cm-1. In addition, we define approximate quantum numbers to describe the vibration and rotation of the system. The vibration is represented by a hyper-radial mode and a two-degree-of-freedom hyperangular mode, including a vibrational angular momentum defined in an Eckart frame. The rotation is described by the total angular momentum quantum number, its projection on the axis perpendicular to the molecular plane, and a hyperangular internal momentum quantum number, related to the vibrational angular momentum by a transformation between Eckart and principal-axes-of-inertia frames. These quantum numbers provide a qualitative understanding of the spectra and, in particular, of the impact of the nuclear permutational symmetry of the system (bosonic with zero nuclear spin). Rotational constants are extracted from the spectra and are shown to be accurate only for the ground hyperangular mode.     

Semiempirical local spin: Theory and implementation of the ZILSH method for predicting Heisenberg exchange constants of polynuclear transition metal complexes

The local spin formalism ( 3 ) for computing expectation values 〈S_A · S_B〉 that appear in the Heisenberg spin model has been extended to semiempirical single determinant wave functions. An alternative derivation of expectation values in restricted and unrestricted cases is given that takes advantage of the zero differential overlap (ZDO) approximation. A formal connection between single determinant wave functions (which are not in general spin eigenfunctions) and the Heisenberg spin model was established by demonstrating that energies of single determinants that are eigenfunctions of the local spin operators with eigenvalues corresponding to high‐spin radical centers are given by the same Heisenberg coupling constants {J_AB} that describe the true spin states of the system. Unrestricted single determinant wave functions for transition metal complexes are good approximations of local spin eigenfunctions when the metal d orbitals are local in character and all unpaired electrons on each metal have the same spin (although spins on different metals might be reversed). Good approximations of the coupling constants can then be extracted from local spin expectation values 〈S_A · S_B〉 energies of the single determinant wave functions. Once the coupling constants are obtained, diagonalization of the Heisenberg spin Hamiltonian provides predictions of the energies and compositions of the spin states. A computational method is presented for obtaining coupling constants and spin‐state energies in this way for polynuclear transition metal complexes using the intermediate neglect of differential overlap Hamiltonian parameterized for optical spectroscopy (INDO/S) in the ZINDO program. This method is referred to as ZILSH, derived from ZINDO, Davidson's local spin formalism, and the Heisenberg spin model. Coupling constants and spin ground states obtained for 10 iron complexes containing from 2 to 6 metals are found to agree well with experimental results in most cases. In the case of the complex [Fe₆O₃(OAc)₉(OEt)₂(bpy)₂]⁺, a priori predictions of the coupling constants yield a ground‐state spin of zero, in agreement with variable‐temperature magnetization data, and corroborate spin alignments proposed earlier on the basis of structural considerations. This demonstrates the potential of the ZILSH method to aid in understanding magnetic interactions in polynuclear transition metal complexes. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2003