Coupling Constants, High Spin, and Broken Symmetry States of Organic Radicals: an Assessment of the Molecules-in-Molecules Fragmentation-Based Method

We extend the application of our multilayer molecules-in-molecules (MIM) fragmentation-based method to the study of open-shell systems, particularly organic radicals. A test set of organic mono-, di- and polyradicals with a wide range in size, containing up to 360 atoms, was investigated. Total energies computed with MIM using density functional theory (DFT) were compared with full, unfragmented energies to assess the performance of MIM and to develop a systematic protocol for the treatment of large radical systems. More specifically, a two-layer (MIM2) model with a fragmentation scheme along the backbone involving covalently bonded dimers, trimers, or tetramers was considered, with DFT at a smaller basis set serving as the low level of theory. The MIM method was evaluated on the high-spin state and several possible broken-symmetry (BS) states for di- and polyradicals. When relevant spin–spin interactions were considered, the errors in total energies were less than 1 kcal mol–1. In addition, the applicabi...