How deeply are core electrons perturbed when valence electrons are spin polarized? The case study of transition metal compounds

The ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic wave functions of the KMnF₃ perovskite have been evaluated quantum-mechanically by using an all electron approach and, for comparison, pseudopotentials on the transition metal and the fluorine ions. It is shown that the different number of α and β electrons in the d shell of Mn perturbs the inner shells, with shifts between the α and β eigenvalues that can be as large as 6 eV for the 3s level, and is far from negligible also for the 2s and 2p states. The valence electrons of F are polarized by the majority spin electrons of Mn, and in turn, spin polarize their 1s electrons. When a pseudopotential is used, such a spin polarization of the core functions of Mn and F can obviously not take place. The importance of such a spin polarization can be appreciated by comparing (i) the spin density at the Mn and F nuclear position, and then the Fermi contact constant, a crucial quantity for the hyperfine coupling, and (ii) the ferromagnetic–antiferromagnetic energy difference, when obtained with an all electron or a pseudopotential scheme, and exploring how the latter varies with pressure. This difference is as large as 50% of the all electron datum, and is mainly due to the rigid treatment of the F ion core. The effect of five different functionals on the core spin polarization is documented.     

Synthesis and some reductions of endo- and exo-3,6-epoxy-Δ4-tetrahydrophthalic anhydride

The synthesis of endo-3,6-epoxy-Δ⁴-tetrahydrophthalic anhydride from the endo-adduct of furan and maleic acid is described. Reduction of endo- and exo-3,6-epoxy-Δ⁴-tetrahydrophthalic anhydride with sodium borohydride gave the corresponding lactones, while catalytic hydrogenation over 10% Pd/C gave anhydride and/or hemi-acylals, depending on the solvent.     

The crystal structure of Cu4(PO4)2O

Cu₄(PO₄)₂O crystallizes in the space group $\text{P}\text{1}$ with a = 7.5393(8) Å, b = 8.1021(9) Å, c = 6.2764(8) Å, α = 113.65(1)°, β = 98.42(1)° and γ = 74.19(1)°. The structure was refined by full-matrix least-squares techniques using automatic diffractometer data to R = 0.046 (R_w = 0.056). Four unique copper atoms are in six, five-, and four-coordinated polyhedra which are linked together to form a three-dimensional network. The structure is best described in terms of a cubic close-packed array of oxygen atoms with one-tenth of the possible anion sites vacant.     

Conformational analysis of some (E)-α-phenyl-β-(2-thienyl)- and -(2-furyl_acrylic acids

NMR spectral data of some (E)-α-phenyl-β-(2-thienyl) acrylic acids indicate that these compounds exist in the preferred s-trans conformation. In the case of (E)-α-phenyl-β-(2-furyl)acrylic acids and their methyl esters the presence of only s-cis rotamer has been established.     

All‐electron relativistic computations on the low‐lying electronic states,bond length,and vibrational frequency of CeF diatomic molecule with spin–orbit coupling effects

Ab initio all‐electron computations have been carried out for Ce⁺ and CeF, including the electron correlation, scalar relativistic, and spin–orbit coupling effects in a quantitative manner. First, the n‐electron valence state second‐order multireference perturbation theory (NEVPT2) and spin–orbit configuration interaction (SOCI) based on the state‐averaged restricted active space multiconfigurational self‐consistent field (SA‐RASSCF) and state‐averaged complete active space multiconfigurational self‐consistent field (SA‐CASSCF) wavefunctions have been applied to evaluations of the low‐lying energy levels of Ce⁺ with [Xe]4f¹5d¹6s¹ and [Xe]4f¹5d² configurations, to test the accuracy of several all‐electron relativistic basis sets. It is shown that the mixing of quartet and doublet states is essential to reproduce the excitation energies. Then, SA‐RASSCF(CASSCF)/NEVPT2 + SOCI computations with the Sapporo(‐DKH3)‐2012‐QZP basis set were carried out to determine the energy levels of the low‐lying electronic states of CeF. The calculated excitation energies, bond length, and vibrational frequency are shown to be in good agreement with the available experimental data. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Spectroscopic and quantum chemical studies on the structure of 2-arylquinoline-4(1H)-thione derivatives

The geometries of the title compounds were probed in solution, solid and gas states using spectroscopic methods, X-ray crystallography and quantum chemical techniques. The exclusive existence of the NH-4-thiones in solution (NMR and PCM-B3LYP(MP2)/6-31+G(d) calculations) and solid state (FT-IR and X-ray) is also corroborated by comparison of their spectroscopic data with those of the corresponding 2-aryl-1-methylquinoline-4(1H)-thione derivatives. The co-existence of the quinoline-4-thione and quinoline-4-thiol (4-mercaptoquinoline) isomers in the gas phase is confirmed by mass spectrometry and the preponderance of the 4-thiol is supported by quantum chemical techniques (PM3, MP2 and B3LYP).     

Tuning the frontier molecular orbital energy levels of n‐type conjugated copolymers by using angular‐shaped naphthalene tetracarboxylic diimides,and their use in all‐polymer solar cells with high open‐circuit voltages

An angular‐shaped naphthalene tetracarboxylic diimide (NDI) was designed and synthesized as a new building block for n‐type conjugated polymers to tune their energy levels. Three n‐type copolymers incorporating this angular‐shaped NDI as the acceptor moiety were obtained by Stille coupling reactions and had number average molecular weights of 18.7–73.0 kDa. All‐polymer bulk‐heterojunction solar cells made from blends of these polymers with poly(3‐hexylthiophene) gave a power conversion efficiency up to 0.32% and exhibited an open‐circuit voltage (V_oc) up to 0.94 V due to their relative high‐lying lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy levels. The high V_oc of 0.94 V is higher than that of solar cells based on linear‐shaped NDI‐containing polymers (<0.6 V). The results indicate that the angular‐shaped NDI is a promising building block for constructing nonfullerene polymer acceptors for solar cells with high open‐circuit voltages. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2013     

Some aspects of the dependence of solid-state structure on electron count

The method of moments is used to show how the structures of molecules and solids is sensitive to the number of valence electrons.     

Ca7Au3 and Ca5Au4, two structures closely related to the Th7Fe3 and Pu5Rh4 types

Two new intermetallic compounds have been synthetized and structurally studied by single crystal diffractometric data: Ca₇Au₃ (oP80, space groupPbca,a = 20.742(8), b = 18.036(8), c = 6.665(2) A?,Z = 8, R = 0.051) and Ca₅Au₄ (mP18, space groupP2₁/c, a = 8.028(3), b = 8.019(6), c = 7.727(3) A?, β = 109.16(6)°,Z = 2, R = 0.104). Both atomic arrangements, which represent new structural types, are based on Au-centered Ca trigonal prisms and are geometrically related to the Th₇Fe₃ and Pu₅Rh₄ structures.     

All-atom de novo protein folding with a scalable evolutionary algorithm

The search for efficient and predictive methods to describe the protein folding process at the all-atom level remains an important grand-computational challenge. The development of multi-teraflop architectures, such as the IBM BlueGene used in this study, has been motivated in part by the large computational requirements of such studies. Here we report the predictive all-atom folding of the forty-amino acid HIV accessory protein using an evolutionary stochastic optimization technique. We implemented the optimization method as a master-client model on an IBM BlueGene, where the algorithm scales near perfectly from 64 to 4096 processors in virtual processor mode. Starting from a completely extended conformation, we optimize a population of 64 conformations of the protein in our all-atom free-energy model PFF01. Using 2048 processors the algorithm predictively folds the protein to a near-native conformation with an RMS deviation of 3.43 A in < 24 h.