Imbalanced spin coupling in the copper hexamer compounds 
A2Cu3O(SO4)3(A2=Na2,NaK,K2)

We report a theoretical investigation and elucidation of the x-ray absorption spectra of neutral benzene and of the benzene cation. The generation of the cation by multiphoton ultraviolet (UV) ionization as well as the measurement of the carbon K-edge spectra of both species using a table-top high-harmonic generation (HHG) source are described in the companion experimental paper [M. Epshtein et al., J. Phys. Chem. A., submitted. Available on ChemRxiv]. We show that the 1sC -> pi transition serves as a sensitive signature of the transient cation formation, as it occurs outside of the spectral window of the parent neutral species. Moreover, the presence of the unpaired (spectator) electron in the pi-subshell of the cation and the high symmetry of the system result in significant differences relative to neutral benzene in the spectral features associated with the 1sC ->pi* transitions. High-level calculations using equation-of-motion coupled-cluster theory provide the interpretation of the experimental spectra and insight into the electronic structure of benzene and its cation. The prominent split structure of the 1sC -> pi* band of the cation is attributed to the interplay between the coupling of the core -> pi* excitation with the unpaired electron in the pi-subshell and the Jahn-Teller distortion. The calculations attribute most of the splitting (~1-1.2 eV) to the spin coupling, which is visible already at the Franck-Condon structure, and estimate the additional splitting due to structural relaxation to be around ~0.1-0.2 eV. These results suggest that x-ray absorption with increased resolution might be able to disentangle electronic and structural aspects of the Jahn-Teller effect in benzene cation.

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Exchange Spin Coupling from Gaussian Process Regression

10.26434/chemrxiv.12589541.v3 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Marc Philipp Bahlke ◽

Natnael Mogos ◽

Jonny Proppe ◽

Carmen Herrmann

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Gaussian Process ◽

Gaussian Process Regression ◽

Molecular Magnets ◽

Molecular Structures ◽

Spin Coupling ◽

Structure Property ◽

Data Set ◽

Uncertainty Estimates

Heisenberg exchange spin coupling between metal centers is essential for describing and understanding the electronic structure of many molecular catalysts, metalloenzymes, and molecular magnets for potential application in information technology. We explore the machine-learnability of exchange spin coupling, which has not been studied yet. We employ Gaussian process regression since it can potentially deal with small training sets (as likely associated with the rather complex molecular structures required for exploring spin coupling) and since it provides uncertainty estimates (“error bars”) along with predicted values. We compare a range of descriptors and kernels for 257 small dicopper complexes and find that a simple descriptor based on chemical intuition, consisting only of copper-bridge angles and copper-copper distances, clearly outperforms several more sophisticated descriptors when it comes to extrapolating towards larger experimentally relevant complexes. Exchange spin coupling is similarly easy to learn as the polarizability, while learning dipole moments is much harder. The strength of the sophisticated descriptors lies in their ability to linearize structure-property relationships, to the point that a simple linear ridge regression performs just as well as the kernel-based machine-learning model for our small dicopper data set. The superior extrapolation performance of the simple descriptor is unique to exchange spin coupling, reinforcing the crucial role of choosing a suitable descriptor, and highlighting the interesting question of the role of chemical intuition vs. systematic or automated selection of features for machine learning in chemistry and material science.

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Controlling Through-Space and Through-Bond Exchange Pathways in Bis-Cobaltocenes for Molecular Spintronics

10.26434/chemrxiv.9878729 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Sarah Puhl ◽

Torben Steenbock ◽

Carmen Herrmann ◽

Jürgen Heck

Keyword(s):

Chemical Synthesis ◽

First Principles ◽

Information Transfer ◽

Spin Coupling ◽

Molecular Spintronics ◽

Pathways Analysis ◽

Chemical Strain

Pinching molecules via chemical strain suggests intuitive consequences, such as compression at the pinched site, and clothespin-like opening of other parts of the structure. If this opening affects two spin centers, it should result in reduced communication between them. We show that for a naphthalene-bridged biscobaltocenes with competing through-space and through-bond pathways, the consequences of pinching are far less intuitive: despite the known dominance of through-space interactions, the bridge plays a much larger role for exchange spin coupling than previously assumed. Based on a combination of chemical synthesis, structural, magnetic and redox characterization, and a newly developed first-principles theoretical pathways analysis, we can suggest a comprehensive explanation for this nonintuitive behavior. These results are of interest for molecular spintronics, as naphthalene-linked cobaltocenes can form wires on surfaces for potential spin-only information transfer.

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