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Dalton is a powerful general-purpose program system for the study of molecular electronic structure at the Hartree–Fock, Kohn–Sham, multiconfigurational self-consistent-field, Møller–Plesset, configuration-interaction, and coupled-cluster levels of theory. Apart from the total energy, a wide variety of molecular properties may be calculated using these electronic-structure models. Molecular gradients and Hessians are available for geometry optimizations, molecular dynamics, and vibrational studies, whereas magnetic resonance and optical activity can be studied in a gauge-origin-invariant manner. Frequency-dependent molecular properties can be calculated using linear, quadratic, and cubic response theory. A large number of singlet and triplet perturbation operators are available for the study of one-, two-, and three-photon processes. Environmental effects may be included using various dielectric-medium and quantum-mechanics/molecular-mechanics models. Large molecules may be studied using linear-scaling and massively parallel algorithms. Dalton is distributed at no cost from http://www.daltonprogram.org for a number of UNIX platforms.

Modern density-functional methods for the calculation of electronic g-tensors have been implemented within the framework of the deMon code. All relevant perturbation operators are included. Particular emphasis has been placed on accurate yet efficient treatment of the two-electron spin−orbit terms. At an all-electron level, the computationally inexpensive atomic mean-field approximation is shown to provide spin−orbit contributions in excellent agreement with the results obtained using explicit one- and two-electron spin−orbit integrals. Spin−other−orbit contributions account for up to 25−30% of the two-electron terms and may thus be non-negligible. For systems containing heavy atoms we use a pseudopotential treatment, where quasirelativistic pseudopotentials are included in the Kohn−Sham calculation whereas appropriate spin−orbit pseudopotentials are used in the perturbational treatment of the g-tensors. This approach is shown to provide results in good agreement with the all-electron treatment, at moderate computational cost. Due to the atomic nature of both mean-field all-electron and pseudopotential spin−orbit operators used, the two approaches may even be combined in one calculation. The atomic character of the spin−orbit operators may also be used to analyze the contributions of certain atoms to the paramagnetic terms of the g-tensors. The new methods have been applied to a wide variety of species, including small main group systems, aromatic radicals, as well as transition metal complexes.

We report the first implementation of the calculation of electronic g-tensors by density functional methods with hybrid functionals. Spin-orbit coupling is treated by the atomic meanfield approximation. g-Tensors for a set of small main group radicals and for a series of ten 3d and two 4d transition metal complexes have been compared using the local density approximation (VWN functional), the generalized gradient approximation (BP86 functional), as well as B3-type (B3PW91) and BH-type (BHPW91) hybrid functionals. For main group radicals, the effect of exact-exchange mixing is small. In contrast, significant differences between the various functionals arise for transition metal complexes. As has been shown previously, local and in particular gradient-corrected functionals tend to underestimate the "paramagnetic" contributions to the g-tensors in these cases and thereby recover only about 40-50% of the range of experimental g-tensor components. This is improved to ca. 60% by the B3PW91 functional, which also gives slightly reduced standard deviations. The range increases to almost 100% using the half-and-half functional BHPW91. However, the quality of the correlation with experimental data worsens due to a significant overestimate of some intermediate g-tensor values. The worse performance of the BHPW91 functional in these cases is accompanied by spin contamination. Although none of the functionals tested thus appears to be ideal for the treatment of electronic g-tensors in transition metal complexes, the B3PW91 hybrid functional exhibited the overall most satisfactory performance. Apart from the validation of hybrid functionals, some aspects in the treatment of spin-orbit contributions to the g-tensor are discussed.

The structures of the UO2(aq)2+ ion and of the uranium(VI) hydroxide complex(es) formed in strongly alkaline solution have been investigated theoretically using molecular-orbital based quantum chemical methods, and experimentally using EXAFS methodology. Relativity was included explicitly through the Douglas−Kroll transformation. The uranium atom was described at the ECP level, using the AIMP methodology. The structures of [UO2(H2O)5]2+, and the hydroxide complexes, viz., [UO2(OH)4·(H2O)]2-, [UO2(OH)4]2-·(H2O), [UO2(O)(OH)2]2-·2(H2O), and [UO2(OH)5]3-, were optimized at the SCF level, using gradient techniques, while the relative stabilities were calculated at the MP2 level of approximation. The third structure contains three coordinated ligands, one of which is an oxide ion, in the plane perpendicular to the linear UO2-unit. Complexes of this type have not been experimentally identified for U(VI); however, they are formed for the iso-electronic Np(VII). The experimental EXAFS data indicates that the complex(es) formed is(are) mononuclear. The number of coordinated ligands in the equatorial plane is 4.5 ± 0.4, while the bond distances are the same within the experimental errors, as in a previous study of [Co(NH3)6 3+]2[UO2(OH)4 2-]3·2H2O, by Clark et al. An EXAFS model where the coordination number is fixed to four, is only marginally less precise than the model without constraints on the coordination number. This fact together with the close agreement between experimental and theoretically observed variations in bond distances between the different structure models provides a strong indication for the formation of [UO2(OH)4]2- in solution. This is an unusual coordination number for uranium(VI) complexes, previously found in sterically crowded systems such as UO2Cl4 2-.

The structures of the complexes UO(2)F(n)(H(2)O)(5-n)(2-n), n = 3-5, have been studied by EXAFS. All have pentagonal bipyramid geometry with U-F of and U-H(2)O distances equal to 2.26 and 2.48 A, respectively. On the other hand the complex UO(2)(OH)(4)(2-) has a square bipyramid geometry both in the solid state and in solution. The structures of hydroxide and fluoride complexes have also been investigated with wave function based and DFT methods in order to explore the possible reasons for the observed structural differences. These studies include models that describe the solvent by using a discrete second coordination sphere, a model with a spherical, or shape-adapted cavity in a conductor-like polarizable continuum medium (CPCM), or a combination of the two. Solvent effects were shown to give the main contribution to the observed structure variations between the uranium(VI) tetrahydroxide and the tetrafluoride complexes. Without a solvent model both UO(2)(OH)(4)(H(2)O)(2-) and UO(2)F(4)(H(2)O)(2-) have the same square bipyramid geometry, with the water molecule located at a distance of more than 4 A from uranium and with a charge distribution that is very near identical in the two complexes. Of the models tested, only the CPCM ones are able to describe the experimentally observed square and pentagonal bipyramid geometry in the tetrahydroxide and tetrafluoride complexes. The geometry and the relative energy of different isomers of UO(2)F(3)(H(2)O)(2-) are very similar, indicating that they are present in comparable amounts in solution. All calculated bond distances are in good agreement with the experimental observations, provided that a proper model of the solvent is used.

The complexation of Cm(III) and Eu(III) with 2,6-di(5,6-dipropyl-1,2,4-triazin-3-yl)pyridine (n-C3H7-BTP) in nonaqueous organic solution is studied with extended X-ray absorption spectroscopy. Bond lengths are the same in both complexes. Quantum-chemical calculations performed at different levels support this finding. On the other hand, the Cm.(n-C3H7-BTP)3 complex is formed at much lower ligand-to-metal concentration ratio than the Eu.(n-C3H7-BTP)3 complex, as shown by time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy. This is in good agreement with n-C3H7-BTP's high selectivity for trivalent actinides over lanthanides in liquid-liquid extraction.