Simkó I, Chordiya K, Császár AG, Kahaly MU, Szidarovszky T. A quantum-chemical perspective on the laser-induced alignment and orientation dynamics of the CH
3 X (X = F, Cl, Br, I) molecules.
J Comput Chem 2022;
43:519-538. [PMID:
35084047 PMCID:
PMC9303447 DOI:
10.1002/jcc.26811]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2021] [Revised: 01/04/2022] [Accepted: 01/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Motivated by recent experiments, the laser-induced alignment-and-orientation (A&O) dynamics of the prolate symmetric top CH3 X (X = F, Cl, Br, I) molecules is investigated, with particular emphasis on the effect of halogen substitution on the rotational constants, dipole moments, and polarizabilities of these species, as these quantities determine the A&O dynamics. Insight into possible control schemes for preferred A&O dynamics of halogenated molecules and best practices for A&O simulations are provided, as well. It is shown that for accurate A&O -dynamics simulations it is necessary to employ large basis sets and high levels of electron correlation when computing the rotational constants, dipole moments, and polarizabilities. The benchmark-quality values of these molecular parameters, corresponding to the equilibrium, as well as the vibrationally averaged structures are obtained with the help of the focal-point analysis (FPA) technique and explicit electronic-structure computations utilizing the gold-standard CCSD(T) approach, basis sets up to quintuple-zeta quality, core-correlation contributions and, in particular, relativistic effects for CH3 Br and CH3 I. It is shown that the different A&O behavior of the CH3 X molecules in the optical regime is mostly caused by the differences in their polarizability anisotropy, in other terms, the size of the halogen atom. In contrast, the A&O dynamics of the CH3 X series induced by an intense few-cycle THz pulse is mostly governed by changes in the rotational constants, due to the similar dipole moments of the CH3 X molecules. The A&O dynamics is most sensitive to the B rotational constant: even the difference between its equilibrium and vibrationally-averaged values results in noticeably different A&O dynamics. The contribution of rotational states having different symmetry, weighted by nuclear-spin statistics, to the A&O dynamics is also studied.
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