Piotr de Silva

Visualizing and Quantifying Interactions in the Excited State

Determining the location and nature of the electron pairs within a molecule provides an intuitive representation of electronic structures. Yet, most of the available theoretical representations are not suitable for describing excited state phenomena. The density overlap region indicator (DORI) scalar field, which depends only on the density and its derivatives, overcomes previous limitations, while keeping the intuitiveness of popular scalar fields. Here, its usefulness is demonstrated by pinpointing visual and numerical DORI signatures for both intra- and intermolecular excited state situations.

Simultaneous Visualization of Covalent and Noncovalent Interactions Using Regions of Density Overlap

We introduce a density-dependent bonding descriptor that enables simultaneous visualization of both covalent and noncovalent interactions. The proposed quantity is tailored to reveal the regions of space, where the total electron density results from a strong overlap of shell, atomic, or molecular densities. We show that this approach is successful in describing a variety of bonding patterns as well as nonbonding contacts. The Density Overlap Regions Indicator (DORI) analysis is also exploited to visualize and quantify the concept of electronic compactness in supramolecular chemistry. In particular, the scalar field is used to compare the compactness in molecular crystals, with a special emphasis on quaterthiophene derivatives with enhanced charge mobilities.

Exact non-additive kinetic potentials in realistic chemical systems

In methods based on frozen-density embedding theory or subsystem formulation of density functional theory, the non-additive kinetic potential (v(t)(nad)(r)) needs to be approximated. Since v(t)(nad)(r) is defined as a bifunctional, the common strategies rely on approximating v(t)(nad)[ρ(A),ρ(B)](r). In this work, the exact potentials (not bifunctionals) are constructed for chemically relevant pairs of electron densities (ρ(A) and ρ(B)) representing: dissociating molecules, two parts of a molecule linked by a covalent bond, or valence and core electrons. The method used is applicable only for particular case, where ρ(A) is a one-electron or spin-compensated two-electron density, for which the analytic relation between the density and potential exists. The sum ρ(A) + ρ(B) is, however, not limited to such restrictions. Kohn-Sham molecular densities are used for this purpose. The constructed potentials are analyzed to identify the properties which must be taken into account when constructing approximations to the corresponding bifunctional. It is comprehensively shown that the full von Weizsäcker component is indispensable in order to approximate adequately the non-additive kinetic potential for such pairs of densities.

Atomic shell structure from the Single-Exponential Decay Detector

The density of atomic systems is analysed via the Single-Exponential Decay Detector (SEDD). SEDD is a scalar field designed to explore mathematical, rather than physical, properties of electron density. Nevertheless, it has been shown that SEDD can serve as a descriptor of bonding patterns in molecules as well as an indicator of atomic shells [P. de Silva, J. Korchowiec, and T. A. Wesolowski, ChemPhysChem 13, 3462 (2012)]. In this work, a more detailed analysis of atomic shells is done for atoms in the Li-Xe series. Shell populations based on SEDD agree with the Aufbau principle even better than those obtained from the Electron Localization Function, which is a popular indicator of electron localization. A link between SEDD and the local wave vector is given, which provides a physical interpretation of SEDD.

Long-range interactions from the many-pair expansion: A different avenue to dispersion in DFT

One of the several problems that plague majority of density functional theory calculations is their inability to properly account for long-range correlations giving rise to dispersion forces. The recently proposed many-pair expansion (MPE) [T. Zhu et al., Phys. Rev. B 93, 201108(R) (2016)] is a hierarchy of approximations that systematically corrects any deficiencies of an approximate functional to finally converge to the exact energy. This is achieved by decomposing the total density into a sum of two-electron densities and accounting for successive two-, four-, six-,… electron interactions. Here, we show that already low orders of MPE expansion recover the dispersion energy accurately. To this end, we employ the Pariser-Parr-Pople Hamiltonian and study the behavior of long-range interactions in trans-polyacetylene as well as stacks of ethylene and benzene molecules. We also show how convergence of the expansion is affected by electron conjugation and the choice of the density partitioning.

QM/MM Study of Static and Dynamic Energetic Disorder in the Emission Layer of an Organic Light-Emitting Diode

Static and dynamic energetic disorder in emission layers of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) is investigated through combined molecular dynamics and hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) calculations. The analysis is based on a comparison of ensemble and time distributions of site energies of guest and host components in an emission layer. The law of total variance is applied to decompose the total disorder into its static and dynamic contributions. It is found that both contributions are of the same order of magnitude. While the dynamic disorder is not affected by intermolecular interactions, the static disorder for both guests and hosts is determined by the polarity of host molecules. The amount of static disorder affects charge-transport properties and exciton formation pathways, which consequently influence the overall efficiency of an OLED device. The simulations indicate that the amount of static disorder induced by the host should be considered for the optimization of the emission layer.

Self-Attractive Hartree Decomposition: Partitioning Electron Density into Smooth Localized Fragments

Chemical bonding plays a central role in the description and understanding of chemistry. Many methods have been proposed to extract information about bonding from quantum chemical calculations, the majority of them resorting to molecular orbitals as basic descriptors. Here, we present a method called self-attractive Hartree (SAH) decomposition to unravel pairs of electrons directly from the electron density, which unlike molecular orbitals is a well-defined observable that can be accessed experimentally. The key idea is to partition the density into a sum of one-electron fragments that simultaneously maximize the self-repulsion and maintain regular shapes. This leads to a set of rather unusual equations in which every electron experiences self-attractive Hartree potential in addition to an external potential common for all the electrons. The resulting symmetry breaking and localization are surprisingly consistent with chemical intuition. SAH decomposition is also shown to be effective in visualization of single/multiple bonds, lone pairs, and unusual bonds due to the smooth nature of fragment densities. Furthermore, we demonstrate that it can be used to identify specific chemical bonds in molecular complexes and provides a simple and accurate electrostatic model of hydrogen bonding.