From a humorous post to a detailed quantum-chemical study: isocyanate synthesis revisited.

Isocyanates play an essential role in modern manufacturing processes, especially in polyurethane production. There are numerous synthesis strategies for isocyanates both under industrial and laboratory conditions, which do not prevent searching for alternative highly efficient synthetic protocols. Here, we report a detailed theoretical investigation of the mechanism of sulfur dioxide-catalyzed rearrangement of phenylnitrile oxide into phenyl isocyanate, which was first reported in 1977. The DLPNO-CCSD(T) method and up-to-date DFT protocols were used to perform a highly accurate quantum-chemical study of the rearrangement mechanism. An overview of various organic and inorganic catalysts has revealed other potential catalysts, such as sulfur trioxide and selenium dioxide. Furthermore, the present study elucidated how substituents in phenylnitrile oxide influence reaction kinetics. This study was performed by a self-organized collaboration of scientists initiated by a humorous post on the VK social network.

Ultrafast dynamics of fluorene initiated by highly intense laser fields.

We present an investigation of the ultrafast dynamics of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon fluorene initiated by an intense femtosecond near-infrared laser pulse (810 nm) and probed by a weak visible pulse (405 nm). Using a multichannel detection scheme (mass spectra, electron and ion velocity-map imaging), we provide a full disentanglement of the complex dynamics of the vibronically excited parent molecule, its excited ionic states, and fragments. We observed various channels resulting from the strong-field ionization regime. In particular, we observed the formation of the unstable tetracation of fluorene, above-threshold ionization features in the photoelectron spectra, and evidence of ubiquitous secondary fragmentation. We produced a global fit of all observed time-dependent photoelectron and photoion channels. This global fit includes four parent ions extracted from the mass spectra, 15 kinetic-energy-resolved ionic fragments extracted from ion velocity map imaging, and five photoelectron channels obtained from electron velocity map imaging. The fit allowed for the extraction of 60 lifetimes of various metastable photoinduced intermediates.

On the thermodynamic stability of polycations.

We present a simple approximation to estimate the largest charge that a given molecule can hold until fragmentation into smaller charged species becomes more energetically favorable. This approximation solely relies on the ionization potentials, electron affinities of the parent and fragment species, and also on the neutral parent's dissociation energy. By parameterizing these quantities, it is possible to obtain analytical phase diagrams of polycationic stability. We demonstrate the applicability of this approach by discussing the maximal charge dependence on the size of the molecular system. A numerical demonstration for linear polyenes, monocyclic annulenes, and helium clusters is provided.

Metadynamics simulations with Bohmian-style bias potential.

Here, we present a parametrization of the metadynamics simulations for reactions involving breaking the chemical bonds along a single collective variable coordinate. The parameterization is based on the similarity between the bias potential in metadynamics and the quantum potential in the de Broglie-Bohm formalism. We derive the method and test it on two prototypical reaction types: proton transfer and breaking of the cyclohexene cycle (reversed Diels-Alder reaction).

Describing nuclear quantum effects in vibrational properties using molecular dynamics with Wigner sampling.

In this work we discuss the generally applicable Wigner sampling and introduce a new, simplified Wigner sampling method, for computationally effective modeling of molecular properties containing nuclear quantum effects and vibrational anharmonicity. For various molecular systems test calculations of (a) vibrationally averaged rotational constants, (b) vibrational IR spectra and (c) photoelectron spectra have been performed. The performance of Wigner sampling has been assessed by comparing with experimental data and with results of other theoretical models, including harmonic and VPT2 approximations. The developed simplified Wigner sampling method shows advantages in application to large and flexible molecules.

Regularized weighted sine least-squares spectral analysis for gas electron diffraction data.

Here, we present a new approach for obtaining radial distribution functions (RDF) from the electron diffraction data using a regularized weighted sine least-squares spectral analysis. It allows for explicitly transferring the measured experimental uncertainties in the reduced molecular scattering function to the produced RDF. We provide a numerical demonstration, discuss the uncertainties and correlations in the RDFs, and suggest a regularization parameter choice criterion. The approach is also applicable for other diffraction data, e.g., for x-ray or neutron diffraction of liquid samples.

The kinetic energy of PAH dication and trication dissociation determined by recoil-frame covariance map imaging.

We investigated the dissociation of dications and trications of three polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), fluorene, phenanthrene, and pyrene. PAHs are a family of molecules ubiquitous in space and involved in much of the chemistry of the interstellar medium. In our experiments, ions are formed by interaction with 30.3 nm extreme ultraviolet (XUV) photons, and their velocity map images are recorded using a PImMS2 multi-mass imaging sensor. Application of recoil-frame covariance analysis allows the total kinetic energy release (TKER) associated with multiple fragmentation channels to be determined to high precision, ranging 1.94-2.60 eV and 2.95-5.29 eV for the dications and trications, respectively. Experimental measurements are supported by Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics (BOMD) simulations.

Double Proton Transfer Across a Table: The Formic Acid Dimer-Fluorobenzene Complex.

Proton transfer via tunneling is a fundamental quantum-mechanical phenomenon. We report rotational spectroscopy measurements of this process in the complex of the formic acid dimer with fluorobenzene. The assignment of the spectrum indicates that this complex exists in the form of a π-π stacked structure. Each rotational transition of the parent isotopologue exhibits splitting. Isotopic substitution experiments show that the spectral splitting results from double-proton transfer tunneling in the formic acid dimer. Presence of fluorobenzene as a neighboring molecule does not quench the double proton transfer in the formic acid dimer but decreases its tunneling splitting from 341(3) MHz to 267.608(1) MHz. Calculations suggest that the presence of the weakly bounded fluorobenzene does not influence the activation energy of the proton transfer. The fluorobenzene is reoriented with respect to the formic acid dimer during the course of the reaction, slowing down the proton transfer motion.

Nitroxoline Molecule: Planar or Not? A Story of Battle between π-π Conjugation and Interatomic Repulsion.

The conformational properties of the nitro group in nitroxoline (8-hydroxy-5-nitroquinoline, NXN) were investigated in the gas phase by means of gas electron diffraction (GED) and quantum chemical calculations, and also with solid-state analysis performed using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS). The results of the GED refinement show that in the equilibrium structure the NO2 group is twisted by angle ϕ = 8 ± 3° with respect to the 8-hydroxyoquinoline plane. This is the result of interatomic repulsion of oxygen in the NO2 group from the closest hydrogen, which overcomes the energy gain from the π-π conjugation of the nitro group and aromatic system of 8-hydroxyoquinoline. The computation of equilibrium geometry using MP2/cc-pVXZ (X = T, Q) shows a large overestimation of the ϕ value, while DFT with the cc-pVTZ basis set performs reasonably well. On the other hand, DFT computations with double-ζ basis sets yield a planar structure of NXN. The refined potential energy surface of the torsion vibration the of nitro group in the condensed phase derived from the THz-TDS data indicates the NXN molecule to be planar. This result stays in good agreement with the previous X-ray structure determination. The strength of the π-system conjugation for the NO2 group and 8-hydroxyoquinoline is discussed using NBO analysis, being further supported by comparison of the refined semiexperimental gas-phase structure of NXN from GED with other nitrocompounds.

Tetranitromethane: A Nightmare of Molecular Flexibility in the Gaseous and Solid States.

After numerous attempts over the last seven decades to obtain a structure for the simple, highly symmetric molecule tetranitromethane (C(NO2 )4 , TNM) that is consistent with results from diffraction experiments and spectroscopic analysis, the structure has now been determined in the gas phase and the solid state. For the gas phase, a new approach based on a four-dimensional dynamic model for describing the correlated torsional dynamics of the four C-NO2 units was necessary to describe the experimental gas-phase electron diffraction intensities. A model describing a highly disordered high-temperature crystalline phase was also established, and the structure of an ordered low-temperature phase was determined by X-ray diffraction. TNM is a prime example of molecular flexibility, bringing structural methods to the limits of their applicability.

The effect of molecular dynamics sampling on the calculated observable gas-phase structures.

In this study, we compare the performance of various ab initio molecular dynamics (MD) sampling methods for the calculation of the observable vibrationally-averaged gas-phase structures of benzene, naphthalene and anthracene molecules. Nose-Hoover (NH), canonical and quantum generalized-Langevin-equation (GLE) thermostats as well as the a posteriori quantum correction to the classical trajectories have been tested and compared to the accurate path-integral molecular dynamics (PIMD), static anharmonic vibrational calculations as well as to the experimental gas electron diffraction data. Classical sampling methods neglecting quantum effects (NH and canonical GLE thermostats) dramatically underestimate vibrational amplitudes for the bonded atom pairs, both C-H and C-C, the resulting radial distribution functions exhibit nonphysically narrow peaks. This deficiency is almost completely removed by taking the quantum effects on the nuclei into account. The quantum GLE thermostat and a posteriori correction to the canonical GLE and NH thermostatted trajectories capture most vibrational quantum effects and closely reproduce computationally expensive PIMD and experimental radial distribution functions. These methods are both computationally feasible and accurate and are therefore recommended for calculations of the observable gas-phase structures. A good performance of the quantum GLE thermostat for the gas-phase calculations is encouraging since its parameters have been originally fitted for the condensed-phase calculations. Very accurate molecular structures can be predicted by combining the equilibrium geometry obtained at a high level of electronic structure theory with vibrational amplitudes and corrections calculated using MD driven by a lower level of electronic structure theory.

Gas phase equilibrium structure of histamine.

The first gas electron diffraction (GED) experiment for histamine was carried out. The equilibrium structure of histamine in the gas phase was determined on the basis of the data obtained. The refinement was also supported by the rotational constants obtained in previous studies [B. Vogelsanger, et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1991, 113, 7864-7869; P. Godfrey, et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1998, 120, 10724-10732] and quantum chemical calculations. The proposed mechanism of tautomerization by simultaneous intermolecular transfer of hydrogens in a histamine dimer helps to explain the distribution of tautomers in different experiments. The estimations of the conformational interconversion times provided the explanation for the absence of some conformers in the rotational spectroscopy experiments.

Application of classical simulations for the computation of vibrational properties of free molecules.

In this study, we investigate the ability of classical molecular dynamics (MD) and Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations for modeling the intramolecular vibrational motion. These simulations were used to compute thermally-averaged geometrical structures and infrared vibrational intensities for a benchmark set previously studied by gas electron diffraction (GED): CS2, benzene, chloromethylthiocyanate, pyrazinamide and 9,12-I2-1,2-closo-C2B10H10. The MD sampling of NVT ensembles was performed using chains of Nose-Hoover thermostats (NH) as well as the generalized Langevin equation thermostat (GLE). The performance of the theoretical models based on the classical MD and MC simulations was compared with the experimental data and also with the alternative computational techniques: a conventional approach based on the Taylor expansion of potential energy surface, path-integral MD and MD with quantum-thermal bath (QTB) based on the generalized Langevin equation (GLE). A straightforward application of the classical simulations resulted, as expected, in poor accuracy of the calculated observables due to the complete neglect of quantum effects. However, the introduction of a posteriori quantum corrections significantly improved the situation. The application of these corrections for MD simulations of the systems with large-amplitude motions was demonstrated for chloromethylthiocyanate. The comparison of the theoretical vibrational spectra has revealed that the GLE thermostat used in this work is not applicable for this purpose. On the other hand, the NH chains yielded reasonably good results.

Simple posterior frequency correction for vibrational spectra from molecular dynamics.

Vibrational spectra computed from molecular dynamics simulations with large integration time steps suffer from nonphysical frequency shifts of signals [M. Praprotnik and D. Janezic, J. Chem. Phys. 122, 174103 (2005)]. A simple posterior correction technique was developed for compensation of this behavior. It performs through replacement of abscissa in the calculated spectra using following formula: νcorrected=2⋅1-cos(2π⋅Δt⋅νinitial)2π⋅Δt, where ν are initial and corrected frequencies and Δt is the MD simulation time step. Applicability of this method was tested on gaseous infrared spectra of hydrogen fluoride and formic acid.

Influence of Antipodally Coupled Iodine and Carbon Atoms on the Cage Structure of 9,12-I2-closo-1,2-C2B10H10: An Electron Diffraction and Computational Study.

Because of the comparable electron scattering abilities of carbon and boron, the electron diffraction structure of the C2v-symmetric molecule closo-1,2-C2B10H12 (1), one of the building blocks of boron cluster chemistry, is not as accurate as it could be. On that basis, we have prepared the known diiodo derivative of 1, 9,12-I2-closo-1,2-C2B10H10 (2), which has the same point-group symmetry as 1 but in which the presence of iodine atoms, with their much stronger ability to scatter electrons, ensures much better structural characterization of the C2B10 icosahedral core. Furthermore, the influence on the C2B10 geometry in 2 of the antipodally positioned iodine substituents with respect to both carbon atoms has been examined using the concerted application of gas electron diffraction and quantum chemical calculations at the MP2 and density functional theory (DFT) levels. The experimental and computed molecular geometries are in good overall agreement. Molecular dynamics simulations used to obtain vibrational parameters, which are needed for analyzing the electron diffraction data, have been performed for the first time for this class of compound. According to DFT calculations at the ZORA-SO/BP86 level, the (11)B chemical shifts of the boron atoms to which the iodine substituents are bonded are dominated by spin-orbit coupling. Magnetically induced currents within 2 have been calculated and compared to those for [B12H12](2-), the latter adopting a regular icosahedral structure with Ih point-group symmetry. Similar total current strengths are found but with a certain anisotropy, suggesting that spherical aromaticity is present; electron delocalization in the plane of the hetero atoms in 2 is slightly hindered compared to that for [B12H12](2-), presumably because of the departure from ideal icosahedral symmetry.

Electric nuclear quadrupole coupling reveals dissociation of HCl with a few water molecules.

Investigating the dissociation of acids in the presence of a limited number of water molecules is crucial for understanding various elementary chemical processes. In our study, focusing on HCl(H2O)n clusters (where HCl is hydrogen chloride and H2O is water) formed in a cold and isolated jet expansion, we used the nuclear quadrupole coupling tensor obtained through rotational spectroscopy to decipher the nature of the hydrogen-chlorine (H-Cl) chemical bond in a microaqueous environment. For n = 1 to 4, the H-Cl bond is covalent. At n = 5 and 7, the contact ion pair of H3O+Cl- is spontaneously formed within the hydrogen bond networks of book and cube acid-water clusters, respectively.

Evolution of the ionisation energy with the stepwise growth of chiral clusters of [4]helicene.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are widely established as ubiquitous in the interstellar medium (ISM), but considering their prevalence in harsh vacuum environments, the role of ionisation in the formation of PAH clusters is poorly understood, particularly if a chirality-dependent aggregation route is considered. Here we report on photoelectron spectroscopy experiments on [4]helicene clusters performed with a vacuum ultraviolet synchrotron beamline. Aggregates (up to the heptamer) of [4]helicene, the smallest PAH with helical chirality, were produced and investigated with a combined experimental and theoretical approach using several state-of-the-art quantum-chemical methodologies. The ionisation onsets are extracted for each cluster size from the mass-selected photoelectron spectra and compared with calculations of vertical ionisation energies. We explore the complex aggregation topologies emerging from the multitude of isomers formed through clustering of P and M, the two enantiomers of [4]helicene. The very satisfactory benchmarking between experimental ionisation onsets vs. predicted ionisation energies allows the identification of theoretically predicted potential aggregation motifs and corresponding energetic ordering of chiral clusters. Our structural models suggest that a homochiral aggregation route is energetically favoured over heterochiral arrangements with increasing cluster size, hinting at potential symmetry breaking in PAH cluster formation at the scale of small grains.

Inducing transient enantiomeric excess in a molecular quantum racemic mixture with microwave fields.

Chiral molecules with low enantiomer interconversion barriers racemize even at cryogenic temperatures due to quantum tunneling, forming a racemic mixture that is impossible to separate using conventional chemical methods. Here we both experimentally and theoretically demonstrate a method to create and probe a state-specific enantiomeric enrichment for such molecular systems. The coherent, non-linear, and resonant approach is based on a microwave six-wave mixing scheme and consists of five phase-controlled microwave pulses. The first three pulses induce a chiral wavepacket in a chosen rotational state, while the consecutive two pulses induce a polarization for a particular rotational transition (listen transition) with a magnitude proportional to the enantiomeric excess created. The experiments are performed with the transiently chiral molecule benzyl alcohol, where a chiral molecular response was successfully obtained. This signal demonstrates that enantiomeric excess can be induced in a quantum racemic mixture of a transiently chiral molecule using the developed microwave six-wave mixing scheme, which is an important step towards controlling non-rigid chiral molecular systems.

Pump-probe spectroscopy of chiral vibrational dynamics.

A planar molecule may become chiral upon excitation of an out-of-plane vibration, changing its handedness during half a vibrational period. When exciting such a vibration in an ensemble of randomly oriented molecules with an infrared laser, half of the molecules will undergo the vibration phase-shifted by π compared to the other half, and no net chiral signal is observed. This symmetry can be broken by exciting the vibrational motion with a Raman transition in the presence of a static electric field. Subsequent ionization of the vibrating molecules by an extreme ultraviolet pulse probes the time-dependent net handedness via the photoelectron circular dichroism. Our proposal for pump-probe spectroscopy of molecular chirality, based on quantum-chemical theory and discussed for the example of the carbonyl chlorofluoride molecule, is feasible with current experimental technology.

Switching Hydrogen Bonding to π-Stacking: The Thiophenol Dimer and Trimer.

We used jet-cooled broadband rotational spectroscopy to explore the balance between π-stacking and hydrogen-bonding interactions in the self-aggregation of thiophenol. Two different isomers were detected for the thiophenol dimer, revealing dispersion-controlled π-stacked structures anchored by a long S-H···S sulfur hydrogen bond. The weak intermolecular forces allow for noticeable internal dynamics in the dimers, as tunneling splittings are observed for the global minimum. The large-amplitude motion is ascribed to a concerted inversion motion between the two rings, exchanging the roles of the proton donor and acceptor in the thiol groups. The determined torsional barrier of B2 = 250.3 cm-1 is consistent with theoretical predictions (290-502 cm-1) and the monomer barrier of 277.1(3) cm-1. For the thiophenol trimer, a symmetric top structure was assigned in the spectrum. The results highlight the relevance of substituent effects to modulate π-stacking geometries and the role of the sulfur-centered hydrogen bonds.