A New Group Theoretical Approach to the Nonorthogonal Problem in Valence Bond Theory

Introduction There has been a very significarnt resurgence of interest in ab initio valence bond calculations recently. This is because the VB calculation based on nonorthogonal basis can provide intuitive understanding about many very important phenomena in chemistry. However, practical calculation based on nonorthogonal basis is still a great challenge even to deal with a quite small system due to the well-known N! (or

Theoretical Study on the Excited-state Intramolecular Hydrogen Abstraction Reactions of Butanal

The excited-state intramolecular hydrogen abstraction reactions of butanal have been investigated using the CAS-MP2/6-311＋G^＊//CASSCF/6-31G^＊ methods. Calculated results show that the hydrogen transfer induced fluorescence quenching of the n,π^＊-excited state of covalent butanal with three paths： （1） The first path corresponds to direct S0-react reconstitution, which involves the first S1 decay by partial hydrogen atom transfer. （2） The second stepwise mechanism can be viewed as a full hydrogen atom transfer followed by a partial hydrogen atom back transfer, electron transfer （near S1/S0 or S0-TS） and finally a proton transfer to S0-react. （3） On the triplet surface, the surface crossing to the singlet state would be clearly much efficient at the T1/S0 region due to the large SOC value of 8.3 cm^-1. The S0-react decay route from T1/S0 was studied with an intrinsic reaction coordinate （IRC） calculation at the CASSCF level, resulting in the S0-React minimum.

Metastability of π-π stacking between the closed-shell ions of like charges

Planar cations or anions can form stacks in crystals or solutions,where the surrounding or environment plays a decisive role as demonstrated in previous studies.However,it remains unclear whether these counterintuitive interactions possess any inherent stability or are thoroughly repulsive if the constraint of environment is removed.In this work,we explored the inherent stability ofπ-πstacking between closed-shell ions of like charges with prototypes derived from experimental studies.The inherent metastability was identified by the characteristic local minima and the transition states preventing their dissociation and verified by ab initio molecular dynamics(AIMD)simulations.The nature of involved interactions was deciphered with the energy decomposition approach based on the block-localized wavefunction method(BLW-ED).Like the conventional neutralπ-πstacking interactions,electron correlation is the most attractive energy component.But it is overturned by the Coulombic repulsion between net charges for all modes of dimerization,resulting in the overall repulsive inter-cation or anion in-teractions.Contributions from van der Waals interactions were also observed in the reduced density gradient analysis.The origin of the metastability was elucidated by examining the contributions of individual physical factors to the well-depths.The inherent metastability originates from the electron correlation,which dramatically increases due to the enhanced overlap between ions from a transition state to its corresponding minimum.

Paired-permanent approach for VB theory (Ⅱ)——An ab initio spin-free VB program

Paired-permanent approach for VB theory is extensively developed. Canonical expansion of a paired-permanent is deduced. Furthermore, it is shown that a paired-permanent may be expressed in terms of the products of sub-paired-permanents of any given order and their corresponding minors. An ab initio spin-free valence bond program, called Xiamen, is implemented by using paired-permanent approach. Test calculation shows that Xiamen package is more efficient than some other programs based on the traditional VB algorithm, and it provides a new practical tool for quantum chemistry.

Theory and algorithms for the excited states of large molecules and molecular aggregates

This project aims to attack the frontiers of electronic structure calculations on the excited states of large molecules and molecular aggregates by developing novel theoretical and computational methods. The methodology development is especially based on the time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) and valence bond (VB) theory, and is expected to be computationally effective and accurate as well. Research works on the following related subjects will be performed: (1) The analytical energy-derivative approaches for electronically excited state within TDDFT will be developed to reduce bypass the computational costs in the calculation of molecular excited-state properties. (2) The ab initio methods for electronically excited state based on VB theory and hybrid TDDFT-VB method will be developed to overcome the limitations of current TDDFT in simulating photophysics and photochemistry. (3) For larger aggregates, neither ab initio methods nor TDDFT is applicable. We intend to build the effective model Hamiltonian by developing novel theoretical and computational methods to calculate the involved microscopic physical parameters from the first-principles methods. The constructed effective Hamiltonian is then used to describe the excitonic states and excitonic dynamics of the natural or artificial photosynthesized systems, organic or inorganic photovoltaic cell. (4) The condensed phase environment is taken into account by combining the developed theories and algorithms based on TDDFT and VB with the polarizable continuum solvent models (PCM), molecular mechanism (MM), classical electrodynamics (ED) or molecular dynamics (MD) theory. (5) Highly efficient software packages will be designed and developed.

Bond, vibration and microwave dielectric characteristics of Zn_(1- x)(Li_(0.5)Bi_(0.5))_(x)WO_(4) ceramics with low temperature sintering

The bond,vibration and microwave dielectric characteristics of Zn_(1- x)(Li_(0.5)Bi_(0.5))_(x)WO_(4)(x=0-0.12)ce-ramics were investigated by XRD refinement,Raman and FT-IR spectroscopy and complex bond valence theory.The results showed that proper substitution of(Li_(0.5)Bi_(0.5))2þcan improve the sintering charac-teristics and microwave dielectric properties of ZnWO_(4).The increase of Q×f value was mainly attributed to dense and uniform microstructure,and the subsequent decrease resulted from the deterioration of structural stability and relative density.According to the complex bond valence theory,the chemical bond characteristics of ZnWO_(4) and Bi_(2)WO_(6) played an important role in the dielectric properties of the samples.Additionally,the samples(x=0.02)sintered at 900℃ showed satisfactory properties:ε_(r)=15.332,Q×f=35,762 GHz,and t_(f)=-65 ppm/℃,making it a potential candidate material for LTCC applications.

Ab initio VB Studies of the Ground and Low-lying Excited States of BeH and BH

A scheme has been proposed to classify valence bond (VB) wave functions for the calculations of ground and excited states, according to the symmetry properties of one electron orbitals which are involved in the construction of VB wave functions. This scheme is illustrated by the examples of BeH and BH. Ab initio VB computations of these two test molecules in combination with the present classification scheme give reliable results. For example, calculation results show that the state C 2Σ +of BeH is stable, with the bonding energy 0 87 eV and bond length 0 238 nm, which are in good agreement with those obtained by Gerratt et al . The bonding features of ground and low lying excited states of BeH and BH are discussed.