The low-lying triplet electronic excited states of TiO2 and ZrO2: A symmetry adapted cluster–configuration interaction (SAC-CI) study

Abstract

The vertical excitation energies and electron detachment energies to the low-lying triplet excited states of TiO2 and ZrO2 were calculated at the SAC-CI/aug-cc-pVTZ levels. The vertical electron detachment energies to the triplet excited states of TiO2 were compared with previous photoelectron spectra. Possible candidate states for the unassigned bands in the previous photoelectron spectrum were found. Several triplet excited states of TiO2 and ZrO2 were optimized at the SAC-CI/aug-cc-pVDZ and SAC-CI/def2-SVPD levels, respectively. The adiabatic excitation energies and electron detachment energies to the selected triplet states were obtained by single-point calculations at the SAC-CI/def2-TZVPPD level. Density functional theory (BPW91/aug-cc-pVTZ) was also applied to study some of the triplet states for comparison. The calculated electron detachment energies and optimized geometries of the triplet excited states should be useful for studying the photoelectron spectra of TiO2− and ZrO2−.