Nadia Ben Amor

Galvinoxyl, as one of the most extensively studied organic stable free radicals, exhibits a notable phase transition from a high-temperature (HT) phase with a ferromagnetic (FM) intermolecular interaction to a low-temperature (LT) phase with an antiferromagnetic (AFM) coupling at 85 K. Despite significant research efforts, the crystal structure of the AFM LT phase has remained elusive. This study successfully elucidates the crystal structure of the LT phase, which belongs to the P space group. The crystal structure of the LT phase is found to consist of a distorted dimer, wherein the distortion arises from the formation of short intermolecular distances between anti-node carbons in the singly-occupied molecular orbital (SOMO). Starting from the structure of the LT phase, wave function calculations show that the AFM coupling 2J/k_B varies significantly from −1069 K to −54 K due to a parallel shift of the molecular planes within the dimer.

We present two different computational approaches to design covalently bound dimers for singlet fission. Both designs aim at maximizing the effective coupling between the initial singlet excited state S* and the double triplet state TT, by tuning the interaction (mainly through-space) between the chromophore units. Design I is based on a preliminary search for the optimal relative arrangements of chromophores in a space of possible stacked pair geometries. Then, the optimized dimeric arrangements are used as targets for the covalent connection of the two chromophores. In design II, all viable ways to covalently bind the two chromophores are considered, using a given set of linkers. Next, the most promising covalent dimers for singlet fission, among our tested candidates, are identified. The application of our approaches to a locked 1,3-diphenyl-isobenzofuran chromophore and a diamino-fluoroquinone compound allowed to design several promising dimers for singlet fission, featuring large S*-TT effective couplings and favorable energetics.

C_4n cyclacenes exhibit strong bond-alternation in their equilibrium geometry. In the two equivalent geometries, the system keeps an essentially closed-shell character. The two energy minima are separated by a transition state suppressing the bond-alternation, where the wave function is strongly diradical. This paper discusses the physical factors involved in this energy difference and possible evaluations of the barrier height. The barrier given as the energy difference between the restricted density functional theory (DFT)/B3LYP for the equilibrium and the broken symmetry DFT/B3LYP of the transition state is either negative or small, in contradiction with the most reliable Wave Function Theory calculations. The minimal (two electrons in two molecular orbitals) Complete Active Space self-consistent field (CASSCF) overestimates the barrier, and the subsequent second-order perturbation cancels it. Due to the collective character of the spin-polarization effect, it is necessary to perform a full π CASSCF + second-order perturbation to reach a reasonable value of the barrier, but this type of treatment cannot be applied to large molecules. DFT procedures treating on an equal foot the closed-shell and open-shell geometries have been explored, such as Mixed-Reference Spin-Flip Time-dependent-DFT and a new spin-decontamination proposal, namely, DFT-dressed configuration interaction, but the results still depend on the density functional. M06-2X without or with spin-decontamination gives the best agreement with the accurate wave function results.

The spin states of a Co(II) oxoverdazyl compound are investigated by means of wavefunction‐based calculations. Within a ca. 233 K energy window, the ground state and excited states display a structure‐sensitive admixture of low‐spin S_M=1/2 in a dominant high‐spin S_M=3/2 Co(II) ion as indicated by the localized molecular orbitals. The puzzling spin zoology that results from the coupling between open‐shell radical ligands and a spin‐crossover metal ion gives rise to this unusual scenario, which extends the views in molecular magnetism. In agreement with experimental observation, the low‐energy spectroscopy is very sensitive to deformations of the coordination sphere, and a growing admixture of Co(II) low‐spin is evidenced from the calculations. In analogy with mesomerism that accounts for charge delocalization, entanglement combines different local spin states to generate a given total spin multiplicity, a spinmerism phenomenon.

Benchmarking calculations on excited states of models of phenylalanine protein chains are presented to assess the ability of alternative methods to the standard and most commonly used multiconfigurational wave function-based method, the complete active space self-consistent field (CASSCF), in recovering the non-dynamical correlation for systems that become not affordable by the CASSCF. The exploration of larger active spaces beyond the CASSCF limit is benchmarked through three strategies based on the reduction in the number of determinants: the restricted active space self-consistent field, the generalized active space self-consistent field (GASSCF), and the occupation-restricted multiple active space (ORMAS) schemes. The remaining dynamic correlation effects are then added by the complete active space second-order perturbation theory and by the multireference difference dedicated configuration interaction methods. In parallel, the approximate second-order coupled cluster (CC2), already proven to be successful for small building blocks of model proteins in one of our previous works [Ben Amor et al., J. Chem. Phys. 148, 184105 (2018)], is investigated to assess its performances for larger systems. Among the different alternative strategies to CASSCF, our results highlight the greatest efficiency of the GASSCF and ORMAS schemes in the systematic reduction of the configuration interaction expansion without loss of accuracy in both nature and excitation energies of both singlet ππ^* and nπ^*_CO excited states with respect to the equivalent CASSCF calculations. Guidelines for an optimum applicability of this scheme to systems requiring active spaces beyond the complete active space limit are then proposed. Finally, the extension of the CC2 method to such large systems without loss of accuracy is demonstrated, highlighting the great potential of this method to treat accurately excited states, mainly single reference, of very large systems.