Efficient Diffuse Basis Sets for Density Functional Theory

Eliminating all but the <i>s</i> and <i>p</i> diffuse functions on the non-hydrogenic atoms and all diffuse functions on the hydrogen atoms from the aug-cc-pV(<i>x</i>+d)Z basis sets of Dunning and co-workers, where <i>x</i> = D, T, Q, ..., yields the previously proposed “minimally augmented” basis sets, called maug-cc-pV(<i>x</i>+d)Z. Here, we present extensive and systematic tests of these basis sets for density functional calculations of chemical reaction barrier heights, hydrogen bond energies, electron affinities, ionization potentials, and atomization energies. The tests show that the maug-cc-pV(<i>x</i>+d)Z basis sets are as accurate as the aug-cc-pV(<i>x</i>+d)Z ones for density functional calculations, but the computational cost savings are a factor of about two to seven