Multipole Expansion of Atomic Electron Density Fluctuation Interactions in the Density-Functional Tight-Binding Method

Van Quan Vuong, Bálint Aradi, Anders M.N. Niklasson, Qiang Cui, Stephan Irle

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

The accuracy of the density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) method in describing noncovalent interactions is limited due to its reliance on monopole-based spherical charge densities. In this study, we present a multipole-extended second-order DFTB (mDFTB2) method that takes into account atomic dipole and quadrupole interactions. Furthermore, we combine the multipole expansion with the monopole-based third-order contribution, resulting in the mDFTB3 method. To assess the accuracy of mDFTB2 and mDFTB3, we evaluate their performance in describing noncovalent interactions, proton transfer barriers, and dipole moments. Our benchmark results show promising improvements even when using the existing electronic parameters optimized for the original DFTB3 model. Both mDFTB2 and mDFTB3 outperform their monopole-based counterparts, DFTB2 and DFTB3, in terms of accuracy. While mDFTB2 and mDFTB3 perform comparably for neutral and positively charged systems, mDFTB3 exhibits superior performance over mDFTB2 when dealing with negatively charged systems and proton transfers. Overall, the incorporation of the multipole expansion significantly enhances the accuracy of the DFTB method in describing noncovalent interactions and proton transfers.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)7592-7605
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Chemical Theory and Computation
Volume19
Issue number21
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 14 2023

Funding

This work was partially supported by the Fluid Interface Reactions, Structures and Transport (FIRST) Center, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. DOE Office of Science (to V.-Q.V.), and the NIH Grant R35-GM141930 (to Q.C.). S.I. acknowledges support of the study design from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division, Geoscience Program. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. A.M.N.N. acknowledges support by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Basic Energy Sciences (FWP LANLE8AN) and by the U.S. Department of Energy through the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy Contract No. 892333218NCA000001.

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