Extension of Gaussian-2 (G2) theory to bromine- and iodine-containing molecules: Use of effective core potentials

Abstract

Basis sets have been developed for carrying out G2 calculations on bromine‐ and iodine‐containing molecules using all‐electron (AE) calculations and quasirelativistic energy‐adjusted spin–orbit‐averaged seven‐valence–electron effective core potentials (ECPs). Our recommended procedure for calculating G2[ECP] energies for such systems involves the standard G2 steps introduced by Pople and co‐workers, together with the following modifications: (i) second‐order Mo/ller–Plesset (MP2) geometry optimizations use polarized split‐valence [31,31,1] basis sets for bromine and iodine together with 6‐31G(d) for first‐ and second‐row atoms; (ii) single‐point higher‐level energies are calculated for these geometries using our new supplemented bromine and iodine valence basis sets along with supplemented 6‐311G and McLean–Chandler 6‐311G bases for first‐ and second‐row atoms, respectively; and (iii) first‐order spin–orbit corrections are explicitly taken into account. An assessment of the results obtained using such a procedure is presented. The results are also compared with corresponding all‐electron calculations. We find that the G2[ECP] calculations give results which are generally comparable in accuracy to those of the G2[AE] calculations but which involve considerably lower computational cost. They are therefore potentially useful for larger bromine‐ and iodine‐containing molecules for which G2[AE] calculations would not be feasible.