Electron correlation effects in boron clusters BnQ (for Q=-1,0, 1 and n ≤13) based on quantum Monte Carlo simulations

We present all-electron quantum Monte Carlo simulations on the anionic, neutral, and cationic boron clusters BnQ with up to 13 atoms (Q=-1,0,+1 and n≤ 13). Accurate total energies of these...

Correlation Effects in Trimeric Acylphloroglucinols

Trimeric acylphloroglucinols (T-ACPLs) are a subclass of the large class of acylphloroglucinols—derivatives of 1,3,5-trihydroxybenzene containing an R–C=O group. T-ACPL molecules contain three acylphloroglucinol moieties linked by methylene bridges. Many of them are present in natural sources and exhibit biological activities, often better than the corresponding activities of monomeric acylphloroglucinols. All the stable conformers of T-ACPLs contain seven intramolecular hydrogen bonds, which constitute the dominant stabilising factors. A total of 38 different T-ACPLs, including both naturally occurring and model molecules, have been calculated at the HF and DFT/B3LYP levels. The DFT/B3LYP calculations were carried out both without and with Grimme’s dispersion correction, to highlight the dispersion (and, therefore, also electron correlation) effects for these molecules. The roles of dispersion are evaluated considering the effects of Grimme’s correction on the estimation of the conformers’ energies, the description of the characteristics of the individual hydrogen bonds, the conformers’ geometries and other molecular properties. Overall, the results offer a comprehensive overview of the conformational preferences of T-ACPL molecules, their intramolecular hydrogen bond patterns, and the correlation effects on their properties.

TD-DFT: An Exploration of the Energies and Structures of Crystal Violet and a Variety of Cr(III) Complex Ions

<p>Spectroscopy is the science of utilising light in order to divine information about a molecule or system of molecules. Specifically, the absorption, emission, and scattering of different wavelengths of light can provide data about bond strength, bond order, vibrational frequency, and excitation energy [1, 2]. As the wavelength and therefore energy of the incident photons can be set by the instrument, the exact energies of absorbance or emission of the molecule can be measured. This data can be gathered experimentally using specialised equipment however some molecules resist synthesis, and so a wealth of data about many theoretically possible species eludes us. We may also want to isolate the molecule in “empty space” whereas “gas phase” measurements are not always possible. This is one place where computational chemistry comes to the fore. Using an appropriate computational method such as density functional theory (DFT), data can be theoretically derived and calculated for many interesting areas of chemistry. DFT is a computational method based on the findings of Hohenberg and Kohn in 1964 that the ground state electronic energy of a system can be determined completely by the electron density [3-6]. This means that it has a considerably higher efficiency as a computational method compared to the wave function approach, where the number of variables increases exponentially as your system increases in size, as the electron density has the same number of variables regardless of the size of the system [7]. The use of an appropriate functional to map the electron density and the energy is one of the vital choices in utilising this method, but if chosen well can provide good results with a much lower computational cost than other methods, while still accounting for electron correlation effects [8]. It has become a very popular method due to its versatility and generally good accuracy with relatively low computational expense when compared to ab initio methods [9].</p>

TD-DFT: An Exploration of the Energies and Structures of Crystal Violet and a Variety of Cr(III) Complex Ions

<p>Spectroscopy is the science of utilising light in order to divine information about a molecule or system of molecules. Specifically, the absorption, emission, and scattering of different wavelengths of light can provide data about bond strength, bond order, vibrational frequency, and excitation energy [1, 2]. As the wavelength and therefore energy of the incident photons can be set by the instrument, the exact energies of absorbance or emission of the molecule can be measured. This data can be gathered experimentally using specialised equipment however some molecules resist synthesis, and so a wealth of data about many theoretically possible species eludes us. We may also want to isolate the molecule in “empty space” whereas “gas phase” measurements are not always possible. This is one place where computational chemistry comes to the fore. Using an appropriate computational method such as density functional theory (DFT), data can be theoretically derived and calculated for many interesting areas of chemistry. DFT is a computational method based on the findings of Hohenberg and Kohn in 1964 that the ground state electronic energy of a system can be determined completely by the electron density [3-6]. This means that it has a considerably higher efficiency as a computational method compared to the wave function approach, where the number of variables increases exponentially as your system increases in size, as the electron density has the same number of variables regardless of the size of the system [7]. The use of an appropriate functional to map the electron density and the energy is one of the vital choices in utilising this method, but if chosen well can provide good results with a much lower computational cost than other methods, while still accounting for electron correlation effects [8]. It has become a very popular method due to its versatility and generally good accuracy with relatively low computational expense when compared to ab initio methods [9].</p>

Calculation of Metallocene Ionization Potentials via Auxiliary Field Quantum Monte Carlo: Towards Benchmark Quantum Chemistry for Transition Metals

The accurate ab initio prediction of ionization energies is essential to understanding the electrochemistry of transition metal complexes in both materials science and biological applications. However, such predictions have been complicated by the scarcity of gas-phase experimental data, the relatively large size of the relevant molecules, and the presence of strong electron correlation effects. In this work, we apply all-electron phase-less auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo (ph-AFQMC) utilizing multi-determinant trial wavefunctions to six metallocene complexes to compare the computed adiabaticand vertical ionization energies to experimental results. We find the ph-AFQMC mean averaged errors (MAE) of 1.69±1.02 kcal/mol for the adiabatic energies and 2.85±1.13 kcal/mol for the vertical energies. This significantly outperforms density functional theory (DFT), which has MAE’s of 3.62 to 6.98 and 3.31 to 9.88 kcal/mol, as well as a localized coupled cluster approach (DLPNO-CCSD(T0) with moderate PNO cut-offs), which has MAEs of 4.96 and 6.08 kcal/mol, respectively. We also test the reliability of DLPNO-CCSD(T0) and DFT on acetylacetonate (acac) complexes for adiabatic energies measured in the same manner experimentally, and find higher MAE’s, ranging from 4.56 kcal/mol to 10.99 kcal/mol (with a different ordering) for DFT and 6.97 kcal/mol for DLPNO-CCSD(T0), indicating that none of these approaches can be considered benchmark methods, at least for these complexes. We thus demonstrate that ph-AFQMC should be able to handle metallocene redox chemistry with the advantage of systematically improvable results. By utilizing experimental solvation energies, we show that accurate reduction potentials in solution can be obtained.

Attosecond intra-valence band dynamics and resonant-photoemission delays in W(110)

Time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy with attosecond precision provides new insights into the photoelectric effect and gives information about the timing of photoemission from different electronic states within the electronic band structure of solids. Electron transport, scattering phenomena and electron-electron correlation effects can be observed on attosecond time scales by timing photoemission from valence band states against that from core states. However, accessing intraband effects was so far particularly challenging due to the simultaneous requirements on energy, momentum and time resolution. Here we report on an experiment utilizing intracavity generated attosecond pulse trains to meet these demands at high flux and high photon energies to measure intraband delays between sp- and d-band states in the valence band photoemission from tungsten and investigate final-state effects in resonant photoemission.

Methods of study

The experimental and theoretical characterization of oxide nanostructures is addressed. The experimental techniques are classified according to their information content, revealing atomic geometry, chemical composition, electronic structure as well as magnetic, vibrational and chemical properties. Due to the nanometer scale dimensions of oxide nanosystems, many experimental techniques are derived fom the field of surface science and involve ultrahigh vacuum technology. The quantum-theoretical simulations for the description of oxide materials are presented by progressing from simple to increasingly sophisticated methods; the latter become necessary to accurately treat electron correlation effects, which are significant in many oxide materials, in particular at low dimension. Electronic structure methods, total energy methods and atomic structure simulation methods are introduced and discussed.