ONIOM approach for non-adiabatic on-the-fly molecular dynamics demonstrated for the backbone controlled Dewar valence isomerization

J Chem Phys. 2012 May 28;136(20):204307. doi: 10.1063/1.4720090.

Abstract

Non-adiabatic on-the-fly molecular dynamics (NA-O-MD) simulations require the electronic wavefunction, energy gradients, and derivative coupling vectors in every timestep. Thus, they are commonly restricted to the excited state dynamics of molecules with up to ≈20 atoms. We discuss an approximation that combines the ONIOM(QM:QM) method with NA-O-MD simulations to allow calculations for larger molecules. As a proof of principle we present the excited state dynamics of a (6-4)-lesion containing dinucleotide (63 atoms), and especially the importance to include the confinement effects of the DNA backbone. The method is able to include electron correlation on a high level of theory and offers an attractive alternative to QM:MM approaches for moderate sized systems with unknown force fields.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • DNA / chemistry
  • Electrons
  • Isomerism
  • Molecular Dynamics Simulation*
  • Quantum Theory
  • Thymine Nucleotides / chemistry*

Substances

  • Thymine Nucleotides
  • DNA