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Density functional studies of relativistic effects on molecular properties

Relativistic effects are extremely important for heavy atoms and heavy atom containing molecules. Therefore, a relativistic treatment is needed when calculating molecular properties of these species. The fully- relativistic Dirac treatment involves electronic and positronic wavefunctions and a very large basis set is required. This leads to calculations that are too costly and time-consuming for larger molecules. The Zeroth-Order Regular Approximation (ZORA) is an approximation to the Dirac approach, which only deals with the electronic wavefunction. However, unfortunately this method is plagued by the gauge-dependence problem. The gauge-independent ZORA (ZORA-GI) and strictly atomic ZORA approaches provide solutions to this problem.In this work, the ZORA-GI and strictly atomic ZORA codes have been successfully implemented into the Gaussian 09 program. They have been used to calculate the bond lengths, harmonic vibrational frequencies and dissociation energies of the I2, Au2 and Pt2 diatomic molecules. The results show good agreement with experiment and previous theoretical studies. The non-relativistic, ZORA-GI, strictly atomic ZORA and pseudopotential approximations have been used to investigate the electronic structure of the actinide monoxides, AnO, and actinide monoxide cations, AnO+ (An = Th – Cm). It was found that the ground state configurations were dependent on the relativistic approximation chosen. The bond lengths, harmonic vibrational frequencies and dissociation energies were also calculated, with the ZORA methods generally outperforming the pseudopotential approximation. The first theoretical g-tensor study of the organouranium(V) complexes [U(C7H7)2]-, [U(η8-C8H8)(NEt2)(THF)]+, [U(η5-C5H5)(NMe2)3(THF)]+, [U(η8-C8H8)(NEt2)3], [U(η5-C5H5)2(NEt2)2]+ and [U(η8-C8H8)(η5-C5H5)(NEt2)2] has been carried out. It was demonstrated that the choice of density functional affects the way in which the g-tensor axes are assigned. The ground state spin density and SOMO are also sensitive to the choice of density functional. It is these factors that determine the value of the g-tensor.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:568596
Date January 2013
CreatorsWood, Hayley Marie
ContributorsMcdouall, Joseph
PublisherUniversity of Manchester
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttps://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/density-functional-studies-of-relativistic-effects-on-molecular-properties(9f362361-5c09-4b35-a296-dec927ce7b7b).html

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