Explicit role of dynamical and nondynamical electron correlation on singlet–triplet splitting in carbenes

Abstract

Density functional theoretical studies have been performed on carbene systems to determine the singlet–triplet splitting and also to explore the role of electron correlation. Using an approximate method of separation of dynamical and nondynamical correlation, it is found that dynamical and nondynamical electron correlation stabilizes the singlet state relative to the triplet for halo carbenes in both BLYP and B3LYP methods. Calculations performed on higher homologues of methylene suggest that beyond CH(CH 3), both the electron correlations have leveling effect in stabilizing the singlet state relative to the triplet. It has also been observed while dynamical electron correlation fails to provide any substantial degree of stabilization to the singlet states of higher homologues of methylene in B3LYP method, an opposite trend is observed for nondynamical counterpart. Among the larger systems studied, (9-triptycyl)(α-naphthyl)-carbene has the highest stability of the triplet state whereas bis-imidazol-2-ylidenes has the most stable singlet state. Interestingly, the values of the dynamical electron correlation for each state of each system studied are different for the two methods used. The reason behind this apparent discrepancy lies in the fact that the coefficients of the LYP part in B3LYP and BLYP functionals are different.