Multi-configurational short-range density functional theory can describe spin–spin coupling constants of transition metal complexes

Abstract

The multi-configurational short-range (sr) density functional theory has been extended to the calculation of indirect spin–spin coupling constants (SSCCs) for nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The performance of the new method is compared to Kohn–Sham density functional theory and the ab initio complete active space self-consistent field for a selected set of molecules with good reference values. Two density functionals have been considered, the local density approximation srLDA and srPBE from the GGA class of functionals. All srDFT calculations are of Hartree–Fock-type HF-srDFT or complete active space-type CAS-srDFT. In all cases, the calculated SSCC values are of the same quality for srLDA and srPBE functionals, suggesting that one should use the computationally cost-effective srLDA functionals in applications. For all the calculated SSCCs in organic compounds, the best choice is HF-srDFT; the more expensive CAS-srDFT does not provide better values for these single-reference molecules. Fluorine is a challenge; in particular, the FF, FC, and FO couplings have much higher statistical errors than the rest. For SSCCs involving fluorine and a metal atom CAS-srDFT with singlet, generalized Tamm–Dancoff approximation is needed to get good SSCC values although the reference ground state is not a multi-reference case. For VF6−1, all other considered models fail blatantly.