Chunying Rong

Towards understanding performance differences between approximate density functionals for spin states of iron complexes

Density functional theory has been widely used to investigate the structural and electronic properties of heme-containing proteins such as cytochrome P450. Nevertheless, recent studies have shown that approximate exchange-correlation energy density functionals can incorrectly predict the stability order of spin states in, for instance, iron-containing pyridine and imidazole systems. This raises questions about the validity of earlier theoretical studies. In this work, we systematically investigate a few typical inorganic and organic iron-containing complexes and try to understand the performance difference of various density functionals. Two oxidation states of iron, Fe(II) and Fe(III), with different spin states and both adiabatic and vertical structures are considered. A different description of the outmost molecular orbital is found to play the crucial role. Local density and generalized gradient based functionals bias the lower spin state and produce a more localized frontier orbital that is higher in energy than the hybrid functionals. Energy component analysis has been performed, together with comparison of numerous structural and electronic properties. Implications of the present work to the theoretical study of heme-containing biological molecules and other spin-related systems are discussed.

Impact of Lewis Acids on Diels-Alder Reaction Reactivity : A Conceptual Density Functional Theory Study

Density functional theory (DFT) and conceptual/chemical DFT studies are carried out in this work for the normal electron demand Diels-Alder reaction between isoprene and acrolein to compare chemical reactivity and regioselectivity of the reactants in the absence and presence of Lewis acid (LA) catalysts. A cyclic coplanar structure of acrolein-LA complex has been observed and the natural bond orbital analysis has been employed to interpret the interaction between acrolein and LAs. Reactivity indices from frontier molecular orbital energies are proved to be adequate and efficient to evaluate the catalytic property of LAs. Linear relationships have been discovered among the bond order, bond length, catalytic activation, and chemical reactivity for the systems concerned. The validity and applicability of maximum hardness principle, minimum polarizability principle, and minimum electrophilicity principle are examined and discussed in the prediction of the major regioselective isomer and the preferred reaction pathway for the reactions in the present study.

Spanning set of silica cluster isomer topologies from QTAIM.

Structural and chemical properties of the building block of silica nanowires, (SiO(2))(6), are investigated with the theory of atoms and molecules (QTAIM). Twenty-five conformers have been analyzed, ten of which have not been reported before. We extend the silica (SiO(2))(6) topology phase space using QTAIM; the Poincaré-Hopf topological sum rules are applied and used to identify the spanning set of topologies, and this includes finding eight new distinct topologies that satisfy the Poincaré-Hopf relation. A simple phase diagram of the solutions of the Poincaré-Hopf relation is created with the aid of a new classification scheme to determine the boundary between topological stability and instability. Sum rules are then found to be applicable to any set of isomers. We determine that O-O bonding interactions exist for the silica (SiO(2))(6) conformers in regions where the energy surface is flattest. In addition, we identify unstable local minima in the topology of the charge density in order to further compare conformer instabilities. We quantify the dimensionality of a molecule using the Poincaré-Hopf relation instead of Euclidean geometry. This quantum topological definition of geometry shows that the four most energetically stable (SiO(2))(6) conformers are quantified as two-dimensional within the new quantum topology.

Dissecting molecular descriptors into atomic contributions in density functional reactivity theory

Density functional reactivity theory (DFRT) employs the electron density of a molecule and its related quantities such as gradient and Laplacian to describe its structure and reactivity properties. Proper descriptions at both molecular (global) and atomic (local) levels are equally important and illuminating. In this work, we make use of Baders zero-flux partition scheme and consider atomic contributions for a few global reactivity descriptors in DFRT, including the density-based quantification of steric effect and related indices. Earlier, we proved that these quantities are intrinsically correlated for atomic and molecular systems [S. B. Liu, J. Chem. Phys. 126, 191107 (2007); ibid. 126, 244103 (2007)]. In this work, a new basin-based integration algorithm has been implemented, whose reliability and effectiveness have been extensively examined. We also investigated a list of simple hydrocarbon systems and different scenarios of bonding processes, including stretching, bending, and rotating. Interesting changing patterns for the atomic and molecular values of these quantities have been revealed for different systems. This work not only confirms the strong correlation between these global reactivity descriptors for molecular systems, as theoretically proven earlier by us, it also provides new and unexpected changing patterns for their atomic values, which can be employed to understand the origin and nature of chemical phenomena.

Tricolor emitting and energy transfer in the phosphor Ba2ZnSi2O7:Ce3+,Eu3+,Eu2+ for white-LED based near-UV chips

Abstract The red, green and blue (R/G/B) tricolor emitting phosphors Ba 2 ZnSi 2 O 7 co-doped with Ce 3+ and Eu 3+ were synthesized in air atmosphere by a conventional high temperature solid-state reaction technique. All of the excitation spectrum of the phosphor Ba 2 ZnSi 2 O 7 :Ce, Eu showed a strong broad band absorption in the n-UV region whenever monitored by red (630 nm)-emitting or by green (500 nm)- and blue (402 nm)-emitting. Under the excitation of 330 nm, the emission spectrum containing a blue-violet emission band, a green emission and four sharp lines originated from the characteristic transitions of Ce 3+ , Eu 2+ and Eu 3+ ions, of which the relative intensities of the three emission bands could be controlled by the doping concentration of Ce 3+ . The ca. CIE chromaticity coordinates ( x =0.317, y =0.309) of the phosphor Ba 1.94 ZnSi 2 O 7 :0.03Eu,0.01Ce was very close to the standard white ( x =0.33, y =0.33), which suggested that it was a novel single-phased white-light emitting phosphor for LED-based near-UV chip. The mechanisms of energy transfer from Eu 2+ to Eu 3+ via Ce 3+ was also discussed.

Rényi Entropy, Tsallis Entropy and Onicescu Information Energy in Density Functional Reactivity Theory

Density functional theory dictates that the electron density determines everything in a molecular systems ground state, including its structure and reactivity properties. However, little is known about how to use density functionals to predict molecular reactivity. Density functional reactivity theory is an effort to fill this gap: it is a theoretical and conceptual framework through which electron-related functionals can be used to accurately predict structure and reactivity. Such density functionals include quantities from the information-theoretic approach, such as Shannon entropy and Fisher information, which have shown great potential as reactivity descriptors. In this work, we introduce three closely related quantities: Renyi entropy, Tsallis entropy, and Onicescu information energy. We evaluated these quantities for a number of neutral atoms and molecules, revealing their scaling properties with respect to electronic energy and the total number of electrons. In addition, using the example of second-order Onicescu information energy, we examined how its patterns change with the angle of dihedral rotation of an ethane molecule at both the molecular level and atoms-in-molecules level. Using these quantities as additional reactivity descriptors, researchers can more accurately predict the structure and reactivity of molecular systems.

Information Functional Theory: Electronic Properties as Functionals of Information for Atoms and Molecules.

How to accurately predict electronic properties of a Columbic system with the electron density obtained from experiments such as X-ray crystallography is still an unresolved problem. The information-theoretic approach recently developed in the framework of density functional reactivity theory is one of the efforts to address the issue. In this work, using 27 atoms and 41 molecules as illustrative examples, we present a study to demonstrate that one is able to satisfactorily describe such electronic properties as the total energy and its components with information-theoretic quantities like Shannon entropy, Fisher information, Ghosh-Berkowitz-Parr entropy, and Onicescu information energy. Closely related to the earlier attempt of expanding density functionals using simple homogeneous functionals, this work not only confirms Nagys proof that Shannon entropy alone should contain all the information needed to adequately describe an electronic system but also provides a feasible pathway to map the relationship between the experimentally available electron density and various electronic properties for Columbic systems such as atoms and molecules. Extensions to other electronic properties are straightforward.

Computational Study of Chemical Reactivity Using Information-Theoretic Quantities from Density Functional Reactivity Theory for Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution Reactions

The electrophilic aromatic substitution for nitration, halogenation, sulfonation, and acylation is a vastly important category of chemical transformation. Its reactivity and regioselectivity is predominantly determined by nucleophilicity of carbon atoms on the aromatic ring, which in return is immensely influenced by the group that is attached to the aromatic ring a priori. In this work, taking advantage of recent developments in quantifying nucleophilicity (electrophilicity) with descriptors from the information-theoretic approach in density functional reactivity theory, we examine the reactivity properties of this reaction system from three perspectives. These include scaling patterns of information-theoretic quantities such as Shannon entropy, Fisher information, Ghosh-Berkowitz-Parr entropy and information gain at both molecular and atomic levels, quantitative predictions of the barrier height with both Hirshfeld charge and information gain, and energetic decomposition analyses of the barrier height for the reactions. To that end, we focused in this work on the identity reaction of the monosubstituted-benzene molecule reacting with hydrogen fluoride using boron trifluoride as the catalyst in the gas phase. We also considered 19 substituting groups, 9 of which are ortho/para directing and the other 9 meta directing, besides the case of R = -H. Similar scaling patterns for these information-theoretic quantities found for stable species elsewhere were disclosed for these reactions systems. We also unveiled novel scaling patterns for information gain at the atomic level. The barrier height of the reactions can reliably be predicted by using both the Hirshfeld charge and information gain at the regioselective carbon atom. The energy decomposition analysis ensued yields an unambiguous picture about the origin of the barrier height, where we showed that it is the electrostatic interaction that plays the dominant role, while the roles played by exchange-correlation and steric effects are minor but indispensable. Results obtained in this work should shed new light for better understanding of the factors governing the reactivity for this class of reactions and assisting ongoing efforts for the design of new and more efficient catalysts for such kind of transformations.

The cis-effect using the topology of the electronic charge density

We provide a physics-inspired coupling mechanism explaining the cis-effect in terms of electronic and nuclear degrees of freedom and explore the implications for three families of molecules. The cis- or trans-effect is related to the tendency of electronic charge density to move away from the bond critical point (BCP) and towards the associated nuclear attractors. A quantitative measure of this effect is given by the λ 3 eigenvalue of the Hessian matrix of the electronic charge density. The physical origin of the cis-effect is tied to the observation that the central X=X, X=C or N bond-paths of the cis-isomers are more bent (they are up to 1.5% longer than the internuclear distance) than the bond-paths of the corresponding trans-isomers. Greater bond-path bending is associated with a stronger cis-effect; the direction of bond deformation can in all cases be predicted by the most facile (least compressible) mode of the electronic stress tensor. Further to this, the ellipticity ε of the X=X BCPs of a molecule displaying the cis-effect is lower in the cis-isomer than for the corresponding trans-isomer, suggesting that the cis-effect is less counterintuitive than previously thought. The molecules that exhibit the greatest cis-effect are those with fluorinated double bonds; this is because the most facile modes of the C–F bond couple with the highest-symmetry normal mode of vibration. Qualitative agreement is found with existing experimental data and predictions are made where experimental data is lacking.

Evaluating frontier orbital energy and HOMO/LUMO gap with descriptors from density functional reactivity theory

Wave function theory (WFT) and density functional theory (DFT)—the two most popular solutions to electronic structure problems of atoms and molecules—share the same origin, dealing with the same subject yet using distinct methodologies. For example, molecular orbitals are artifacts in WFT, whereas in DFT, electron density plays the dominant role. One question that needs to be addressed when using these approaches to appreciate properties related to molecular structure and reactivity is if there is any link between the two. In this work, we present a piece of strong evidence addressing that very question. Using five polymeric systems as illustrative examples, we reveal that using quantities from DFT such as Shannon entropy, Fisher information, Ghosh-Berkowitz-Parr entropy, Onicescu information energy, Rényi entropy, etc., one is able to accurately evaluate orbital-related properties in WFT like frontier orbital energies and the HOMO (highest occupied molecular orbital)/LUMO (lowest unoccupied molecular orbital) gap. We verified these results at both the whole molecule level and the atoms-in-molecules level. These results provide compelling evidence suggesting that WFT and DFT are complementary to each other, both trying to comprehend the same properties of the electronic structure and molecular reactivity from different perspectives using their own characteristic vocabulary. Hence, there should be a bridge or bridges between the two approaches.