Parameterization basis sets

The first quantum mechanical improvement to MNDO was made by Thiel and Voityuk [19] when they introduced the formalism for adding d-orbitals to the basis set in MNDO/d. This formalism has since been used to add d-orbitals to PM3 to give PM3-tm and to PM3 and AMI to give PM3(d) and AMl(d), respectively (aU three are available commercially but have not been published at the time of writing). Voityuk and Rosch have published parameters for molybdenum for AMl(d) [20] and AMI has been extended to use d-orbitals for Si, P, S and Q. in AMI [21]. Although PM3, for instance, was parameterized with special emphasis on hypervalent compounds but with only an s,p-basis set, methods such as MNDO/d or AMI, that use d-orbitals for the elements Si-Cl are generally more reliable. 

Output File 8-1. Parameters for the STO-2G Basis Set. The parameterized STO-2G basis function is... 

Semiempirical calculations are set up with the same general structure as a HF calculation in that they have a Hamiltonian and a wave function. Within this framework, certain pieces of information are approximated or completely omitted. Usually, the core electrons are not included in the calculation and only a minimal basis set is used. Also, some of the two-electron integrals are omitted. In order to correct for the errors introduced by omitting part of the calculation, the method is parameterized. Parameters to estimate the omitted values are obtained by fitting the results to experimental data or ah initio calculations. Often, these parameters replace some of the integrals that are excluded. 

The most common way of including relativistic effects in a calculation is by using relativisticly parameterized effective core potentials (RECP). These core potentials are included in the calculation as an additional term in the Hamiltonian. Core potentials must be used with the valence basis set that was created for use with that particular core potential. Core potentials are created by htting a potential function to the electron density distribution from an accurate relativistic calculation for the atom. A calculation using core potentials does not have any relativistic terms, but the effect of relativity on the core electrons is included. 

The details of the functional form and parameterization have not yet been published. The advantage is that basis sets involving d-orbitals are readily included (defining the SAMID method), making it possible to perform calculations on a larger fraction of the periodic table. The SAMI method explicitly uses the minimum STO-3G basis set, but it is in principle also possible to use extended basis sets with this model. The acmal calculation of the integrals makes the SAMI method somewhat slower than the MNDO/ AM1/PM3, but only by a factor of 2. The SAMI/SAMID methods have been parameterized for the elements H, Li, C, N, O, F, Si, P, S, Cl, Fe, Cu, Br and 1. 

The parameterization of MNDO/AM1/PM3 is performed by adjusting the constants involved in the different methods so that the results of HF calculations fit experimental data as closely as possible. This is in a sense wrong. We know that the HF method cannot give the correct result, even in the limit of an infinite basis set and without approximations. The HF results lack electron correlation, as will be discussed in Chapter 4, but the experimental data of course include such effects. This may be viewed as an advantage, the electron correlation effects are implicitly taken into account in the parameterization, and we need not perform complicated calculations to improve deficiencies in fhe HF procedure. However, it becomes problematic when the HF wave function cannot describe the system even qualitatively correctly, as for example with biradicals and excited states. Additional flexibility can be introduced in the trial wave function by adding more Slater determinants, for example by means of a Cl procedure (see Chapter 4 for details). But electron cori elation is then taken into account twice, once in the parameterization at the HF level, and once explicitly by the Cl calculation. 

The Parameterized Configuration Interaction (PCI-X) method simply takes the correlation energy and scales it by a constant factor X (typical value 1.2), i.e. it is assumed that the given combination of method and basis set recovers a constant fraction of the correlation energy. 

A basis set of probabilities, B = p(i),P(2), >P(s) is selected for parameterizing arbitrary iV-block probabilities. It is a simple exercise to show that, because of the constraints imposed by the the Kolmogorov consistency conditions (equation 5.68, s -= 2 basis elements are necessary. 

So, ligand-field theory is the name given to crystal-field theory that is freely parameterized. The centrally important point is that ligand-field calculations, whether numerical or merely qualitative, explicitly or implicitly employ a ligand-field Hamiltonian, very much like the crystal-field Hamiltonian, operating upon a basis set of pure d orbitals. Instead of the crystal-field Hamiltonian (Eq. 6.15),... 

To circumvent problems associated with the link atoms different approaches have been developed in which localized orbitals are added to model the bond between the QM and MM regions. Warshel and Levitt [17] were the first to suggest the use of localized orbitals in QM/MM studies. In the local self-consistent field (LSCF) method the QM/MM frontier bond is described with a strictly localized orbital, also called a frozen orbital [43]. These frozen orbitals are parameterized by use of small model molecules and are kept constant in the SCF calculation. The frozen orbitals, and the localized orbital methods in general, must be parameterized for each quantum mechanical model (i.e. energy-calculation method and basis set) to achieve reliable treatment of the boundary [34]. This restriction is partly circumvented in the generalized hybrid orbital (GHO) method [44], In this method, which is an extension of the LSCF method, the boundary MM atom is described by four hybrid orbitals. The three hybrid orbitals that would be attached to other MM atoms are fixed. The remaining hybrid orbital, which represents the bond to a QM atom, participates in the SCF calculation of the QM part. In contrast with LSCF approach the added flexibility of the optimized hybrid orbital means that no specific parameterization of this orbital is needed for each new system. 

In the course of the MNDO/d development [15-18] we have generated new validation sets for second-row and heavier elements. Those for Na, Mg, Al, Si, P, S, Cl, Br, I, Zn, Cd, and Hg have been published [16-18], The corresponding statistical evaluations for heats of formation [18] are summarized in Table 8.3. It is obvious that MNDO/d shows by far the smallest errors followed by PM3 and AMI. All four semiempirical methods perform reasonably well for normalvalent compounds, especially when considering that more effort has traditionally been spent on the parameterization of the first-row elements. For hy-pervalent compounds, however, the errors are huge in MNDO and AMI, and still substantial in PM3, in spite of the determined attempt to reduce these errors in the PM3 parameterization [20], Therefore it seems likely that the improvements in MNDO/d are due to the use of an spd basis set [16-18]. 

The 6-3IG basis set is presently available for first-row transition metals only (Sc-Zn). STO-3G and 3-2IG basis sets are also available for second-row metals (Y-Cd), but are not recommended for use with correlated models. The LACVP pseudopotential is available for all three transition series and PM3 parameterizations have been developed for most important metals in all three rows. 

During last decades the DFT based methods have received a wide circulation in calculations on TMCs electronic structure [34,85-88]. It is, first of all, due to widespread use of extended basis sets, allowing to improve the quality of the calculated electronic density, and, second, due to development of successful (so called - hybrid) parameterizations for the exchange-correlation functionals vide infra for discussion). It is generally believed, that the DFT-based methods give in case of TMCs more reliable results, than the HER non-empirical methods and that their accuracy is comparable to that which can be achieved after taking into account perturbation theory corrections to the HER at the MP2 or some limited Cl level [88-90]. 

The choice of the exchange correlation functional in the density functional theory (DFT) calculations is not very important, so long as a reasonable double-zeta basis set is used. In general, the parameterized model will not fit the quantum mechanical calculations well enough for improved DFT calculations to actually produce better-fitted parameters. In other words, the differences between the different DFT functionals will usually be small relative to the errors inherent in the potential model. A robust way to fit parameters is to use the downhill simplex method in the parameter space. Having available an initial set of parameters, taken from an analogous ion, facilities the fitting processes. 

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