Theoretical study of spin-orbit coupling on spectra and photophysics of rhenium complexes

Title: Theoretical study of spin-orbit coupling on spectra and photophysics of rhenium complexes Author: RNDr. Radka Heydová Department: Physical and Macromolecular Chemistry Supervisor: Ing. Stanislav Záliš, CSc., JHI AS CR, v.v.i. Supervisor's e-mail address: stanislav.zalis@jh.inst-cas.cz Abstract: Relativistic effects, especially spin-orbit coupling (SOC), play an essential role in transition metal chemistry and SOC treatment is indispensable for a correct theoretical description. To demonstrate the importance of SOC, the energies and oscillator strengths of vertical transitions for a series of [ReX(CO)3(2,2'-bipyridine)] (X = Cl, Br, I) and [Re(imidazole)(CO)3(1,10-phenanthroline)]+ complexes were calculated in the spin-free (SF) and spin-orbit (SO) conceptual frameworks. Two different computational approaches were adopted: SO-MS-CASPT2 where SOC was added a posteriori using a configuration interaction model (SO-RASSI), and the approximate perturbative SO-TD-DFT method. Relativistic effects were included via the two-component Douglas-Kroll-Hess transformation and the zeroth-order regular approximation in the former and the latter technique, respectively. The SF (i.e. accounting only for the scalar relativistic effects) and SO results from both methods were compared with each other and to available..