Abstract
Theoretical calculations are presented to determine the structure of radical defects in crystalline lattices. The applications are concentrated on radical defects as they are induced by irradiation in organic crystals and paramagnetic molecular ions embedded in alkali halide lattices. Various approaches are possible to model the molecular environment: the single-molecule approach, the cluster approach, and periodic calculations. The latter are based on a Car-Parrinello formalism in which the molecular orbitals are expanded in a plane-wave basis set and in which the optimized structures at 0 K are obtained by a simulated annealing technique. The pros and cons of the various approaches are highlighted, and where possible comparison with experimental election paramagnetic resonance data are given. Due to the different natures of ionic and organic crystals, specific computational procedures are needed to get good correspondence with the experimental data. In various cases there is experimental evidence that some radical structures are submitted to noticeable changes with increasing temperature. These effects were theoretically reproduced by performing molecular dynamics calculations at elevated temperatures. (C) 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | Conference: 10th International Conference on the Applications of Density Functional Theory in Chemistry and Physics Location: Brussels, BELGIUM Date: SEP 05-12, 2003