Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
<mark>Journal publication date</mark> | 30/07/2009 |
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<mark>Journal</mark> | Journal of Physical Chemistry A |
Issue number | 30 |
Volume | 113 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Pages (from-to) | 8737-8745 |
Publication Status | Published |
<mark>Original language</mark> | English |
Spin-orbit free and spin-orbit coupled CASPT2 wave functions and energies are presented for the ground and low-lying excited states of four actinide element sandwich molecules; thorocene (ThCOT2), uranocene (UCOT2), plutonocene (PuCOT2), and curocene (CmCOT2). Spin-orbit coupling is found to make little difference to the equilibrium geometry of uranocene and plutonocene but has a significant effect on the energy spectrum of all the systems considered here other than thorocene. In all cases, however, the spin-orbit free ground states make the dominant contribution to their spin-orbit coupled counterparts. Following work presented in J. Phys. Chem. A 2009, 113, 2896, the variation in the multiconfigurational character of the ground-state wave functions as the 5f series is crossed is quantified via the occupation of the a(u)/b(1u) (e(2u)) metal-ring bonding and antibonding natural orbitals. The ground state of plutonocene is found to be nondegenerate with vertical bar M-J vertical bar = 0, in agreement with its temperature-independent paramagnetism.