The most widely used oxide for photocatalytic applications owing to its low cost and high activity is TiO₂. The discovery of the photolysis of water on the surface of TiO₂ in 1972 launched four decades of intensive research into the underlying chemical and physical processes involved. Despite much collected evidence, a thoroughly convincing explanation of why mixed-phase samples of anatase and rutile outperform the individual polymorphs has remained elusive. One long-standing controversy is the energetic alignment of the band edges of the rutile and anatase polymorphs of TiO₂ (ref. ). We demonstrate, through a combination of state-of-the-art materials simulation techniques and X-ray photoemission experiments, that a type-II, staggered, band alignment of ~ 0.4 eV exists between anatase and rutile with anatase possessing the higher electron affinity, or work function. Our results help to explain the robust separation of photoexcited charge carriers between the two phases and highlight a route to improved photocatalysts.

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Geometry optimization, including searching for transition states, accounts for most of the CPU time spent in quantum chemistry, computational surface science, and solid-state physics, and also plays an important role in simulations employing classical force fields. We have implemented a geometry optimizer, called DL-FIND, to be included in atomistic simulation codes. It can optimize structures in Cartesian coordinates, redundant internal coordinates, hybrid-delocalized internal coordinates, and also functions of more variables independent of atomic structures. The implementation of the optimization algorithms is independent of the coordinate transformation used. Steepest descent, conjugate gradient, quasi-Newton, and L-BFGS algorithms as well as damped molecular dynamics are available as minimization methods. The partitioned rational function optimization algorithm, a modified version of the dimer method and the nudged elastic band approach provide capabilities for transition-state search. Penalty function, gradient projection, and Lagrange-Newton methods are implemented for conical intersection optimizations. Various stochastic search methods, including a genetic algorithm, are available for global or local minimization and can be run as parallel algorithms. The code is released under the open-source GNU LGPL license. Some selected applications of DL-FIND are surveyed.

The similarities and differences between the behavior of carbon-bound and terminal metal-bound halogens and halide ions as potential hydrogen bond acceptors has been extensively investigated through examination of many thousands of interactions present in crystal structures. Halogens in each of these environments are found to engage in hydrogen bonding, and geometric preferences for these interactions have been established. Notably, typical H···X−M angles are markedly different for X = F than for X = Cl, Br, I. Furthermore, there are significant parallels between the behavior of moderately strong hydrogen bond acceptors X−M and the much weaker acceptors X−C. The underlying reasons for the observed geometric preferences have been established by ab initio molecular orbital calculations using suitable model systems. The results are presented within the context of their potential applications in crystal engineering and supramolecular chemistry, including relevance to nucleation in halogenated solvents. The broader implications of the results in areas such as halocarbon coordination chemistry, binary metal halide solid-state chemistry, and the study of weakly coordinating anions are also discussed.