Theoretical Study on the Small Clusters of LiH, NaH, BeH2, and MgH2

A Holistic View of the Interactions between Electron-Deficient Systems: Clustering of Beryllium and Magnesium Hydrides and Halides

In the search for common bonding patterns in pure and mixed clusters of beryllium and magnesium derivatives, the most stable dimers and trimers involving BeX2 and MgX2 (X = H, F, Cl) have been studied in the gas phase using B3LYP and M06-2X DFT methods and the G4 ab initio composite procedure. To obtain some insight into their structure, stability, and bonding characteristics, we have used two different energy decomposition formalisms, namely MBIE and LMO-EDA, in parallel with the analysis of the electron density with the help of QTAIM, ELF, NCIPLOT, and AdNDP approaches. Some interesting differences are already observed in the dimers, where the stability sequence observed for the hydrides differs entirely from that of the fluorides and chlorides. Trimers also show some peculiarities associated with the presence of compact trigonal cyclic structures that compete in stability with the more conventional hexagonal and linear forms. As observed for dimers, the stability of the trimers changes significantly from hydrides to fluorides or chlorides. Although some of these clusters were previously explored in the literature, the novelty of this work is to provide a holistic approach to the entire series of compounds by using chemical bonding tools, allowing us to understand the stability trends in detail and providing insights for a significant number of new, unexplored structures.

Understanding anharmonic effects on hydrogen desorption characteristics of MgnH2n nanoclusters by ab initio trained deep neural network

Magnesium hydride (MgH₂) has been widely studied for effective hydrogen storage. However, its bulk desorption temperature (553 K) is deemed too high for practical applications. Besides doping, a strategy to decrease such reaction energy for releasing hydrogen is the use of MgH₂-based nanoparticles (NPs). Here, we investigate first the thermodynamic properties of Mg_nH_2n NPs (n < 10) from first-principles, in particular by assessing the anharmonic effects on the enthalpy, entropy and thermal expansion by means of the stochastic self consistent harmonic approximation (SSCHA). This method goes beyond previous approaches, typically based on molecular mechanics and the quasi-harmonic approximation, allowing the ab initio calculation of the fully-anharmonic free energy. We find an almost linear dependence on temperature of the interatomic bond lengths - with a relative variation of few percent over 300 K - alongside with a bond distance decrease of the Mg-H bonds. In order to increase the size of Mg_nH_2n NPs toward experiments of hydrogen desorption we devise a computationally effective machine learning model trained to accurately determine the forces and total energies (i.e. the potential energy surfaces), integrating the latter with the SSCHA model to fully include the anharmonic effects. We find a significative decrease of the H-desorption temperature for sub-nanometric clusters Mg_nH_2n with n ≤ 10, with a non-negligible, although little effect due to anharmonicities (up to 10%).

Incorporating Electronic Information into Machine Learning Potential Energy Surfaces via Approaching the Ground-State Electronic Energy as a Function of Atom-Based Electronic Populations

Machine learning (ML) approximations to density functional theory (DFT) potential energy surfaces (PESs) are showing great promise for reducing the computational cost of accurate molecular simulations, but at present, they are not applicable to varying electronic states, and in particular, they are not well suited for molecular systems in which the local electronic structure is sensitive to the medium to long-range electronic environment. With this issue as the focal point, we present a new machine learning approach called "BpopNN" for obtaining efficient approximations to DFT PESs. Conceptually, the methodology is based on approaching the true DFT energy as a function of electron populations on atoms; in practice, this is realized with available density functionals and constrained DFT (CDFT). The new approach creates approximations to this function with neural networks. These approximations thereby incorporate electronic information naturally into a ML approach, and optimizing the model energy with respect to populations allows the electronic terms to self-consistently adapt to the environment, as in DFT. We confirm the effectiveness of this approach with a variety of calculations on Li_nH_n clusters.

Electronic structures and second hyperpolarizabilities of alkaline earth metal complexes end-capped with NA2 (A = H, Li, Na)

The ground state structures and NLO properties of a number of alkaline earth metal complexes end-capped with NA₂ groups (A = H, Li, Na) are calculated by employing the CAM-B3LYP, wB97XD and B2PLYP functionals along with MP2 and CCSD(T) for 6-311++G(d,p), 6-311++G(3df,3pd), aug-cc-pVTZ, aug-pc-2 and Hypol basis sets.

DENSITY FUNCTIONAL THEORY STUDY OF BINDING ENERGIES, 7Li NUCLEAR MAGNETIC SHIELDING, AND ELECTRIC FIELD GRADIENT TENSORS ON THE SMALL CLUSTERS OF LinHm (m ≤ n ≤ 4)

The binding energies, geometries, 7 Li magnetic shielding, and electric field gradient tensors of hydrogenated lithium clusters, Li n H m (m ≤ n ≤ 4), were studied via density functional theory approach. We optimized the structures using B3LYP functional and 6-311++G (2d,2p) basis set. The calculated binding energies of lithium hydride clusters indicate that hydrogenation energy of Li n H m clusters decreases as the number of hydrogen atoms within the cluster increases. Our calculations also showed that for n = 4 clusters, the three-dimensional structure is more stable than the planar one. The study of the trends in the 7 Li magnetic shielding isotropy, σiso, and anisotropies, Δσ, values are explained in terms of the interplay between the electronic and geometrical effects. The variations in the 7 Li nuclear quadrupole coupling constants, χ, and their associated asymmetry parameters, ηQ, for different isomers of the lithium hydride clusters and the influence of hydrogenation on the EFG tensors are also discussed. For n = 4, we obtained a noticeable difference in the χ value from the planar to the three-dimensional structures. The atoms in molecules (AIM) analysis at the Li–H bond critical point reveals remarkably different topographical properties of the charge density and associated Laplacian fields for the planar and three-dimensional lithium hydride clusters.