Spectroscopically determined force field

A force field that focusses on intramolecular interactions, and particularly on the force constants that determine vibrational frequencies, is the spectroscopically determined force field of Krimm and co-workers (50-52). They advocate very high level quantum calculations to fix the geometries, force constants, and electrostatic terms while using OPLS nonbond Lennard-Jones parameters. The recent focus of this work has been on highly polar molecules, as are discussed later. While this force field reproduces gas-phase IR data very accurately, it does not appear to have been tested on condensed phases. 

What is clearly needed is an approach that systematically incorporates spectroscopic agreement in the initial stages of the optimization of the MM parameters. This has been achieved by a procedure designed to produce a so-called spectroscopically determined force field (SDFF) [45, 46]. 

MM = molecular mechanics SDFF = spectroscopically determined force field. 

The latter development has taken two paths. In one, parameters are obtained by a least-squares fit to energies and first and second derivatives at a number of points on the ab initio potential energy surf ace.In this method, F,y terms in Kq are selected for their presumed relevance. In the second method, that of the spectroscopically determined force field (SDFF), a direct transformation is made from the ab initio structures and second derivatives into the MM function. All F,y are initially retained, with subsequent reduction being determined by preset conditions of frequency agreement. Ab initio energies... 

Most of the force fields described in the literature and of interest for us involve potential constants derived more or less by trial-and-error techniques. Starting values for the constants were taken from various sources vibrational spectra, structural data of strain-free compounds (for reference parameters), microwave spectra (32) (rotational barriers), thermodynamic measurements (rotational barriers (33), nonbonded interactions (1)). As a consequence of the incomplete adjustment of force field parameters by trial-and-error methods, a multitude of force fields has emerged whose virtues and shortcomings are difficult to assess, and which depend on the demands of the various authors. In view of this, we shall not discuss numerical values of potential constants derived by trial-and-error methods but rather describe in some detail a least-squares procedure for the systematic optimisation of potential constants which has been developed by Lifson and Warshel some time ago (7 7). Other authors (34, 35) have used least-squares techniques for the optimisation of the parameters of nonbonded interactions from crystal data. Overend and Scherer had previously applied procedures of this kind for determining optimal force constants from vibrational spectroscopic data (36). 

The vibrational frequencies of isotopic isotopomers obey certain combining rules (such as the Teller-Redlich product rule which states that the ratio of the products of the frequencies of two isotopic isotopomers depends only on molecular geometry and atomic masses). As a consequence not all of the 2(3N — 6) normal mode frequencies in a given isotopomer pair provide independent information. Even for a simple case like water with only three frequencies and four force constants, it is better to know the frequencies for three or more isotopic isotopomers in order to deduce values of the harmonic force constants. One of the difficulties is that the exact normal mode (harmonic) frequencies need to be determined from spectroscopic information and this process involves some uncertainty. Thus, in the end, there is no isotope independent force field that leads to perfect agreement with experimental results. One looks for a best fit of all the data. At the end of this chapter reference will be made to the extensive literature on the use of vibrational isotope effects to deduce isotope independent harmonic force constants from spectroscopic measurements. 

S, Cl and Si-isotope fractionations for gas-phase molecules and aqueous moleculelike complexes (using the gas-phase approximation) are calculated using semi-empirical quantum-mechanical force-field vibrational modeling. Model vibrational frequencies are not normalized to measured frequencies, so calculated fractionation factors are somewhat different from fractionations calculated using normalized or spectroscopically determined frequencies. There is no table of results in the original pubhcation. 

Thus, it is not surprising that, with few exceptions, force field calculations of organometallic systems start with a predefined bonding scheme. This is not unreasonable since the type of bonding may usually be determined from spectroscopic results, and it is often more or less constant within a class of similar compounds. Force field calculations can then be used to obtain a more detailed picture of the structural and dynamic properties of a molecule with a given connectivity. In spite of these restrictions on the modeling of organometallics, the results obtainable are potentially useful, especially for catalytic reactions (see also Chapter 7, Sections 7.2 and 7.4). 

The primary motive for attempting calculations of this kind is simply our desire to determine the potential function V(r) more accurately and over a wider range of co-ordinate space. Even if our immediate ambition is only to determine the equilibrium configuration and the harmonic force field, our ability to withdraw this information from spectroscopic data is limited by the need to make corrections arising from the cubic and quartic anharmonic force field. 

Linear Unsymmetric Triatomic Molecules.—Reducing the symmetry from Daoh to Coot, as in NaO, OCS, and HCN, increases the number of parameters in the general quartic force field to 2re + 4/2 + 6f3 + 9/i Table 7 shows their relationship to the primary spectroscopic observables. It is clear that problems of insufficient data to determine the general force field are already on the horizon for example, data from at least two different isotopic species must be combined in order to determine frrr, frrit, fruit, and fium from the observed values of a and a . In practice, of course, substitutions like 14N for 15N tend to change the spectroscopic constants by only a small fraction, and conversely the observed data on the constants of such isotopic species tend to give nearly parallel information on the force field to that obtained from the parent species. For these reasons the anharmonic force field of molecules like N20 is much less well determined than that of C02. These effects are apparent in the uncertainties obtained on the force constants in the refinement calculations referred to in Table 4. 

Bent Triatomic Molecules.—Calculations have been reported for many bent triatomic molecules (see Table 4). The general force field contains 2re + 4/ + 6/3 + 9A parameters, the relation to the primary spectroscopic constants being shown in Table 9. The fact that these are asymmetric top molecules, for which otj, a , and a can all be determined (generally from the microwave spectrum for the heavier molecules), means that 9 a values are available from each isotopic species to determine the 6 cubic force constants, so that the cubic force field is generally well determined. For the quartic force field the situation is much less satisfactory the experimental data on the anharmonic constants xrs are generally incomplete, and are in any case insufficient to fix all the quartic constants without good isotopic data. 

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