Title

Predictive Coupled-cluster Isomer Orderings for Some SinCm (m, n ≤ 12) Clusters: A Pragmatic Comparison between DFT and Complete Basis Limit Coupled-cluster Benchmarks

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-2016

Abstract

The accurate determination of the preferred Si12C12 isomer is important to guide experimental efforts directed towards synthesizing SiC nano-wires and related polymer structures which are anticipated to be highly efficient exciton materials for opto-electronic devices. In order to definitively identify preferred isomeric structures for silicon carbon nano-clusters, highly accurate geometries, energies and harmonic zero point energies have been computed using coupled-cluster theory with systematic extrapolation to the complete basis limit for set of silicon carbon clusters ranging in size from SiC3 to Si12C12. It is found that post-MBPT(2) correlation energy plays a significant role in obtaining converged relative isomer energies, suggesting that predictions using low rung density functional methods will not have adequate accuracy. Utilizing the best composite coupled-cluster energy that is still computationally feasible, entailing a 3-4 SCF and CCSD extrapolation with triple-ζ (T) correlation, the closo Si12C12 isomer is identified to be the preferred isomer in support of previous calculations [J. Chem. Phys. 2015, 142, 034303]. Additionally we have investigated more pragmatic approaches to obtaining accurate silicon carbide isomer energies, including the use of frozen natural orbital coupled-cluster theory and several rungs of standard and double-hybrid density functional theory. Frozen natural orbitals as a way to compute post MBPT(2) correlation energy is found to be an excellent balance between efficiency and accuracy.

Comments

© 2016 Author(s). Published by AIP Publishing.

The "Link to Full Text" on this page opens or downloads the e-print version of the article hosted at the arXiv.org repository. Posted in accordance with Sherpa/RoMEO guidelines for the source journal, and the license of the specific article.

The published version of record appears in Journal of Chemical Physics as cited below. The published version is available by subscription.

DOI

Version of record: 10.1063/1.4955196 ;

arxiv: 10.48550/arXiv.1606.06713

Source Publication

Journal of Chemical Physics

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