We investigate the torsion potentials in two prototypical π-conjugated polymers, polyacetylene and polydiacetylene, as a function of chain length using different flavors of density functional theory. Our study provides a quantitative analysis of the delocalization error in standard semilocal and hybrid density functionals and demonstrates how it can influence structural and thermodynamic properties. The delocalization error is quantified by evaluating the many-electron self-interaction error (MESIE) for fractional electron numbers, which allows us to establish a direct connection between the MESIE and the error in the torsion barriers. The use of non-empirically tuned long-range corrected hybrid functionals results in a very significant reduction of the MESIE and leads to an improved description of torsion barrier heights. In addition, we demonstrate how our analysis allows the determination of the effective conjugation length in polyacetylene and polydiacetylene chains.
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7 February 2014
Research Article|
February 06 2014
Accurate description of torsion potentials in conjugated polymers using density functionals with reduced self-interaction error
Christopher Sutton;
Christopher Sutton
1School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Center for Computational Molecular Science and Technology,
Georgia Institute of Technology
, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
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Thomas Körzdörfer;
Thomas Körzdörfer
a)
1School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Center for Computational Molecular Science and Technology,
Georgia Institute of Technology
, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
2Computational Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry,
University of Potsdam
, D-14476 Potsdam, Germany
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Matthew T. Gray;
Matthew T. Gray
b)
1School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Center for Computational Molecular Science and Technology,
Georgia Institute of Technology
, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
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Max Brunsfeld;
Max Brunsfeld
c)
1School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Center for Computational Molecular Science and Technology,
Georgia Institute of Technology
, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
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Robert M. Parrish;
Robert M. Parrish
1School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Center for Computational Molecular Science and Technology,
Georgia Institute of Technology
, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
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C. David Sherrill;
C. David Sherrill
1School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Center for Computational Molecular Science and Technology,
Georgia Institute of Technology
, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
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John S. Sears;
John S. Sears
1School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Center for Computational Molecular Science and Technology,
Georgia Institute of Technology
, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
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Jean-Luc Brédas
Jean-Luc Brédas
a)
1School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Center for Computational Molecular Science and Technology,
Georgia Institute of Technology
, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
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a)
Electronic addresses: jean-luc.bredas@chemistry.gatech.edu and thomas.koerzdoerfer@uni-potsdam.de
b)
Now at Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
c)
Present address: Pivotal Labs, San Francisco, California 94103, USA.
J. Chem. Phys. 140, 054310 (2014)
Article history
Received:
November 20 2013
Accepted:
January 13 2014
Citation
Christopher Sutton, Thomas Körzdörfer, Matthew T. Gray, Max Brunsfeld, Robert M. Parrish, C. David Sherrill, John S. Sears, Jean-Luc Brédas; Accurate description of torsion potentials in conjugated polymers using density functionals with reduced self-interaction error. J. Chem. Phys. 7 February 2014; 140 (5): 054310. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4863218
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