Atomic orbital Huckel approximation

HMO theory is named after its developer, Erich Huckel (1896-1980), who published his theory in 1930 [9] partly in order to explain the unusual stability of benzene and other aromatic compounds. Given that digital computers had not yet been invented and that all Hiickel s calculations had to be done by hand, HMO theory necessarily includes many approximations. The first is that only the jr-molecular orbitals of the molecule are considered. This implies that the entire molecular structure is planar (because then a plane of symmetry separates the r-orbitals, which are antisymmetric with respect to this plane, from all others). It also means that only one atomic orbital must be considered for each atom in the r-system (the p-orbital that is antisymmetric with respect to the plane of the molecule) and none at all for atoms (such as hydrogen) that are not involved in the r-system. Huckel then used the technique known as linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO) to build these atomic orbitals up into molecular orbitals. This is illustrated in Figure 7-18 for ethylene. 

The first paper of the frontier-electron theory pointed out that the electrophilic aromatic substitution in aromatic hydrocarbons should take place at the position of the greatest density of electrons in the highest occupied (HO) molecular orbital (MO). The second paper disclosed that the nucleophilic replacement should occur at the carbon atom where the lowest unoccupied (LU) MO exhibited the maximum density of extension. These particular MO s were called "frontier MO s . In homolytic replacements, both HO and LU.were shown to serve as the frontier MO s. In these papers the "partial" density of 2 pn electron, in the HO (or LU) MO, at a certain carbon atom was simply interpreted by the square of the atomic orbital (AO) coefficient in these particular MO s which were represented by a linear combination (LC) of 2 pn AO s in the frame of the Huckel approximation. These partial densities were named frontier-electron densities . 

In the Huckel approximation for hydrocarbons, matrix elements of the Hamiltonian in a basis of p atomic orbitals (pi = apz orbital on atom i) are expressed in terms of two parameters a and / ... 

If symmetry orbitals are used in place of atomic orbitals, then and SJk will become integrals over these orbitals and they will have to be broken down to integrals over the atomic orbitals before the Huckel approximations are made. 

The s atomic orbitals have positive overlap, the p orbital overlap integrals are negative. The overlap of the s atomic orbitals with neighbor atomic orbitals p alternates with sign left or right of the atom. Within the Huckel approximation (5ij = 6 ) the secular equation of the infinite chain becomes ... 

We will adopt the approximation of one s atomic orbital per atom and the Huckel approximation ... 

Using the HMO approximation, the ir-electron wave function is expressed as a linear combination of atomic orbitals (for the case in which the plane of the molecule coincides with the y-z plane of the coordinate axis), in much the same way as described previously for the generalized MO method. Minimizing the total -jT-electron energy of the molecule with respect to the coefficients (the variation method) leads to a series of equations from which the coefficients can be extracted by way of a secular determinant. The mathematical operations involved in solving the equations are not difficult. We will not describe them in detail, but will instead concentrate on the interpretation of the results of the calculations. For many systems, the Huckel MO energies and atomic coefficients have been tabulated." ... 

An approximate treatment of tt electron systems was introduced in 1931 by Erich Huckel (Figure 15.17) and is called the Huckel approximation of tt orbitals. The first step in a Huckel approximation is to treat the sigma bonds separately from the pi bonds. Therefore, in a Huckel approximation of a molecule, only the tt bonds are considered. The usual assumption is that the <7 bonds are understood in terms of regular molecular orbital theory. The <7 bonds form the overall structure of the molecule, and the tt bonds spread out over, or span, the available carbon atoms. Such 77 bonds are formed from the side-on overlap of the carbon 2p orbitals. If we are assuming that the tt bonds are independent of the cr bonds, then we can assume that the 77 molecular orbitals are linear combinations of only the 2p orbitals of the various carbon atoms. [This is a natural consequence of our earlier linear combination of atomic orbitals—molecular orbitals (LCAO-MO) discussion.] Consider the molecule 1,3-butadiene (Figure 15.18). The tt orbitals are assumed to be combinations of the 2p atomic orbitals of the four carbon atoms involved in the conjugated double bonds ... 

There will be no change in the Huckel approximation of ethylene because the hydrogen atom (any isotope) does not contribute to the TT orbitals. 

In the case of ethylene the a framework is formed by the carbon sp -orbitals and the rr-bond is formed by the sideways overlap of the remaining two p-orbitals. The two 7r-orbitals have the same symmetry as the ir 2p and 7T 2p orbitals of a homonuclear diatomic molecule (Fig. 1.6), and the sequence of energy levels of these two orbitals is the same (Fig. 1.7). We need to know how such information may be deduced for ethylene and larger conjugated hydrocarbons. In most cases the information required does not provide a searching test of a molecular orbital approximation. Indeed for 7r-orbitals the information can usually be provided by the simple Huckel (1931) molecular orbital method (HMO) which uses the linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO), or even by the free electron model (FEM). These methods and the results they give are outlined in the remainder of this chapter. 

As mentioned above, HMO theory is not used much any more except to illustrate the principles involved in MO theory. However, a variation of HMO theory, extended Huckel theory (EHT), was introduced by Roald Hof nann in 1963 [10]. EHT is a one-electron theory just Hke HMO theory. It is, however, three-dimensional. The AOs used now correspond to a minimal basis set (the minimum number of AOs necessary to accommodate the electrons of the neutral atom and retain spherical symmetry) for the valence shell of the element. This means, for instance, for carbon a 2s-, and three 2p-orbitals (2p, 2p, 2p ). Because EHT deals with three-dimensional structures, we need better approximations for the Huckel matrix than... 

The Bom-Oppenheimer approximation is not peculiar to the Huckel molecular orbital method. It is used in virtually all molecular orbital calculations and most atomic energy calculations. It is an excellent approximation in the sense that the approximated energies are very close to the energies we get in test cases on simple systems where the approximation is not made. 

Electronic band structures were calculated for several polymeric chains structurally analogous to polyacetylene (-CH-CH) and carbyne (-CbC). Ihe present calculations use the Extended Huckel molecular orbital theory within the tight binding approximation, and values of the calculated band gaps E and band widths BW were used to assess the potential applic ilitf of these materials as electrical semiconductors. Substitution of F or Cl atoms for H atoms in polyacetylene tended to decrease both the E and BW values (relative to that for polyacetylene). Rotation about rhe backbone bonds in the chains away from the planar conformations led to sharp increases in E and decreases in BW. Substitution of -SiH or -Si(CH,) groups for H in polyacetylene invaribly led to an increase in E and a decrease in BW, as was generally the case for insertion of Y ... 

Huckel (properly, Huckel) molecular orbital theory is the simplest of the semiempirical methods and it entails the most severe approximations. In Huckel theory, we take the core to be frozen so that in the Huckel treatment of ethene, only the two unbound electrons in the pz orbitals of the carbon atoms are considered. These are the electrons that will collaborate to form a n bond. The three remaining valence electrons on each carbon are already engaged in bonding to the other carbon and to two hydrogens. Most of the molecule, which consists of nuclei, nonvalence electrons on the carbons and electrons participating in the cr... 

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