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Price AJA, Otero-de-la-Roza A, Johnson ER. XDM-corrected hybrid DFT with numerical atomic orbitals predicts molecular crystal lattice energies with unprecedented accuracy. Chem Sci 2023; 14:1252-1262. [PMID: 36756332 PMCID: PMC9891363 DOI: 10.1039/d2sc05997e] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/29/2022] [Accepted: 12/13/2022] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Molecular crystals are important for many applications, including energetic materials, organic semiconductors, and the development and commercialization of pharmaceuticals. The exchange-hole dipole moment (XDM) dispersion model has shown good performance in the calculation of relative and absolute lattice energies of molecular crystals, although it has traditionally been applied in combination with plane-wave/pseudopotential approaches. This has limited XDM to use with semilocal functional approximations, which suffer from delocalization error and poor quality conformational energies, and to systems with a few hundreds of atoms at most due to unfavorable scaling. In this work, we combine XDM with numerical atomic orbitals, which enable the efficient use of XDM-corrected hybrid functionals for molecular crystals. We test the new XDM-corrected functionals for their ability to predict the lattice energies of molecular crystals for the X23 set and 13 ice phases, the latter being a particularly stringent test. A composite approach using a XDM-corrected, 25% hybrid functional based on B86bPBE achieves a mean absolute error of 0.48 kcal mol-1 per molecule for the X23 set and 0.19 kcal mol-1 for the total lattice energies of the ice phases, compared to recent diffusion Monte-Carlo data. These results make the new XDM-corrected hybrids not only far more computationally efficient than previous XDM implementations, but also the most accurate density-functional methods for molecular crystal lattice energies to date.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alastair J. A. Price
- Department of Chemistry, Dalhousie University6274 Coburg RdHalifaxB3H 4R2Nova ScotiaCanada
| | - Alberto Otero-de-la-Roza
- Departamento de Química Física y Analítica and MALTA-Consolider Team, Facultad de Química, Universidad de Oviedo Oviedo 33006 Spain
| | - Erin R. Johnson
- Department of Chemistry, Dalhousie University6274 Coburg RdHalifaxB3H 4R2Nova ScotiaCanada
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Wade J, Salerno F, Kilbride RC, Kim DK, Schmidt JA, Smith JA, LeBlanc LM, Wolpert EH, Adeleke AA, Johnson ER, Nelson J, Mori T, Jelfs KE, Heutz S, Fuchter MJ. Controlling anisotropic properties by manipulating the orientation of chiral small molecules. Nat Chem 2022; 14:1383-1389. [PMID: 36302869 DOI: 10.1038/s41557-022-01044-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2021] [Accepted: 08/22/2022] [Indexed: 01/04/2023]
Abstract
Chiral π-conjugated molecules bring new functionality to technological applications and represent an exciting, rapidly expanding area of research. Their functional properties, such as the absorption and emission of circularly polarized light or the transport of spin-polarized electrons, are highly anisotropic. As a result, the orientation of chiral molecules critically determines the functionality and efficiency of chiral devices. Here we present a strategy to control the orientation of a small chiral molecule (2,2'-dicyano[6]helicene) by the use of organic and inorganic templating layers. Such templating layers can either force 2,2'-dicyano[6]helicene to adopt a face-on orientation and self-assemble into upright supramolecular columns oriented with their helical axis perpendicular to the substrate, or an edge-on orientation with parallel-lying supramolecular columns. Through such control, we show that low- and high-energy chiroptical responses can be independently 'turned on' or 'turned off'. The templating methodologies described here provide a simple way to engineer orientational control and, by association, anisotropic functional properties of chiral molecular systems for a range of emerging technologies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessica Wade
- Department of Materials and London Centre for Nanotechnology, Imperial College London, London, UK.
- Centre for Processable Electronics, Imperial College London, London, UK.
| | - Francesco Salerno
- Centre for Processable Electronics, Imperial College London, London, UK
- Department of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences Research Hub, Imperial College London, London, UK
| | - Rachel C Kilbride
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
| | - Dong Kuk Kim
- Department of Materials and London Centre for Nanotechnology, Imperial College London, London, UK
- Centre for Processable Electronics, Imperial College London, London, UK
| | - Julia A Schmidt
- Department of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences Research Hub, Imperial College London, London, UK
| | - Joel A Smith
- Department of Physics, Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Luc M LeBlanc
- Department of Chemistry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
| | - Emma H Wolpert
- Department of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences Research Hub, Imperial College London, London, UK
| | - Adebayo A Adeleke
- Department of Chemistry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
| | - Erin R Johnson
- Department of Chemistry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
| | - Jenny Nelson
- Centre for Processable Electronics, Imperial College London, London, UK
- Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London, UK
| | - Tadashi Mori
- Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Suita, Japan
| | - Kim E Jelfs
- Centre for Processable Electronics, Imperial College London, London, UK
- Department of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences Research Hub, Imperial College London, London, UK
| | - Sandrine Heutz
- Department of Materials and London Centre for Nanotechnology, Imperial College London, London, UK
- Centre for Processable Electronics, Imperial College London, London, UK
| | - Matthew J Fuchter
- Centre for Processable Electronics, Imperial College London, London, UK.
- Department of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences Research Hub, Imperial College London, London, UK.
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Chen B, Xu X. XO-PBC: An Accurate and Efficient Method for Molecular Crystals. J Chem Theory Comput 2020; 16:4271-4285. [PMID: 32456429 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.0c00232] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
In this work, we propose the XO-PBC method, which combines the eXtended ONIOM method (XO) with the periodic boundary condition (PBC) for the description of molecular crystals. XO-PBC tries to embed a finite cluster cut out from the solid into the periodic environment, making it feasible to employ advanced molecular quantum chemistry methods, which are usually prohibitively expensive for direct PBC calculations. In particular, XO-PBC utilizes the results from force calculations to design the scheme to fragment the molecule when crystals are made of large molecules and to select cluster model systems automatically consisting of dimer up to tetramer interactions for embedding. By applying an appropriate theory to each model, a satisfactory accuracy for the system under study is ensured, while a high efficiency is achieved with massively parallel computing by distributing model systems onto different processors. A comparison of the XO-PBC calculations with the conventional direct PBC calculations at the B3LYP level demonstrates its accuracy at substantially low cost for the description of molecular crystals. The usefulness of the XO-PBC method is further exemplified, showing that XO-PBC is able to predict the lattice energies of various types of molecular crystals within chemical accuracy (<4 kJ/mol) when the doubly hybrid density functional XYG3 is used as the target high level and the periodic PBE as the basic low level. The XO-PBC method provides a general protocol that brings the great predictive power of advanced electronic structure methods from molecular systems to the extended solids.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bozhu Chen
- Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Computational Physical Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China
| | - Xin Xu
- Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Computational Physical Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China
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Intermolecular Interactions in Molecular Organic Crystals upon Relaxation of Lattice Parameters. CRYSTALS 2019. [DOI: 10.3390/cryst9120665] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Crystal structure prediction is based on the assumption that the most thermodynamically stable structure will crystallize first. The existence of other structures such as polymorphs or from counterenantiomers requires an accurate calculation of the electronic energy. Using atom-centered Gaussian basis functions in periodic Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations in Turbomole, the performance of two dispersion-corrected functionals, PBE-D3 and B97-D, is assessed for molecular organic crystals of the X23 benchmark set. B97-D shows a MAE (mean absolute error) of 4 kJ/mol, compared to 9 kJ/mol for PBE-D3. A strategy for the convergence of lattice energies towards the basis set limit is outlined. A simultaneous minimization of molecular structures and lattice parameters shows that both methods are able to reproduce experimental unit cell parameters to within 4–5%. Calculated lattice energies, however, deviate slightly more from the experiment, i.e., by 0.4 kJ/mol after unit cell optimization for PBE-D3 and 0.5 kJ/mol for B97-D. The accuracy of the calculated lattice energies compared to the experimental values demonstrates the ability of current DFT methods to assist in the quest for possible polymorphs and enantioselective crystallization processes.
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Tetrel Interactions from an Interacting Quantum Atoms Perspective. Molecules 2019; 24:molecules24122204. [PMID: 31212835 PMCID: PMC6632095 DOI: 10.3390/molecules24122204] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/17/2019] [Revised: 06/05/2019] [Accepted: 06/07/2019] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Tetrel bonds, the purportedly non-covalent interaction between a molecule that contains an atom of group 14 and an anion or (more generally) an atom or molecule with lone electron pairs, are under intense scrutiny. In this work, we perform an interacting quantum atoms (IQA) analysis of several simple complexes formed between an electrophilic fragment (A) (CH3F, CH4, CO2, CS2, SiO2, SiH3F, SiH4, GeH3F, GeO2, and GeH4) and an electron-pair-rich system (B) (NCH, NCO-, OCN-, F-, Br-, CN-, CO, CS, Kr, NC-, NH3, OC, OH2, SH-, and N3-) at the aug-cc-pvtz coupled cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) level of calculation. The binding energy ( E bind AB ) is separated into intrafragment and inter-fragment components, and the latter in turn split into classical and covalent contributions. It is shown that the three terms are important in determining E bind AB , with absolute values that increase in passing from electrophilic fragments containing C, Ge, and Si. The degree of covalency between A and B is measured through the real space bond order known as the delocalization index ( δ AB ). Finally, a good linear correlation is found between δ AB and E xc AB , the exchange correlation (xc) or covalent contribution to E bind AB .
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Makuvaza JT, Kokkin DL, Loman JL, Reid SA. C-H/π and C-H-O Interactions in Concert: A Study of the Anisole-Methane Complex using Resonant Ionization and Velocity Mapped Ion Imaging. J Phys Chem A 2019; 123:2874-2880. [PMID: 30860841 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpca.9b01020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Noncovalent forces such as hydrogen bonding, halogen bonding, π-π stacking, and C-H/π and C-H/O interactions hold the key to such chemical processes as protein folding, molecular self-assembly, and drug-substrate interactions. Invaluable insight into the nature and strength of these forces continues to come from the study of isolated molecular clusters. In this work, we report on a study of the isolated anisole-methane complex, where both C-H/π and C-H/O interactions are possible, using a combination of theory and experiments that include mass-selected two-color resonant two-photon ionization spectroscopy, two-color appearance potential (2CAP) measurements, and velocity mapped ion imaging (VMI). Using 2CAP and VMI, we derive the binding energies of the complex in ground, excited, and cation radical states. The experimental values from the two methods are in excellent agreement, and they are compared with selected theoretical values calculated using density functional theory and ab initio methods. The optimized ground-state cluster geometry, which is consistent with the experimental observations, shows methane sitting above the ring, interacting with anisole via both C-H/π and C-H/O interactions, and this dual mode of interaction is reflected in a larger ground-state binding energy as compared with the prototypical benzene-methane system.
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Affiliation(s)
- James T Makuvaza
- Department of Chemistry , Marquette University , Milwaukee , Wisconsin 53233 , United States
| | - Damian L Kokkin
- Department of Chemistry , Marquette University , Milwaukee , Wisconsin 53233 , United States
| | - John L Loman
- Department of Chemistry , Marquette University , Milwaukee , Wisconsin 53233 , United States
| | - Scott A Reid
- Department of Chemistry , Marquette University , Milwaukee , Wisconsin 53233 , United States
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