Comparison of Semiempirical ZILSH and DFT Calculations of Exchange Constants in Fe₄ Butterfly Complexes

Abstract

Magnetic interactions in a series of tetranuclear Fe(3+) complexes with the butterfly core structure have been studied with semiempirical ZILSH and density functional theory (DFT) calculations (B3LYP functional). A theoretical analysis of a previously used method of estimating exchange constants from a restricted number of spin configurations reveals systematic errors arising from asymmetry in the complexes, which cause large variations in results with different choices of spin configurations. Correction factors are derived that yield the correct results obtained from full configuration space (FCS) calculations. Exchange constants obtained from DFT FCS calculations for the "body-body" interaction were large and ferromagnetic, in disagreement with values obtained from empirical fits of magnetic susceptibility data for the complexes, established magnetostructural correlations in polynuclear Fe(3+) complexes, and ZILSH calculations. DFT calculations also gave unreasonably large antiferromagnetic exchange constants for interaction between "wingtip" ions that are not directly bridged, again in disagreement with ZILSH calculations. Estimates of exchange constants for interaction of body and wingtip ions obtained with ZILSH and DFT were similar, with the ZILSH values in slightly better agreement with empirical fits. Considering all interactions, the ZILSH method provides results in better accord with experiment than DFT for these complexes. Additional comparisons of exchange constants obtained with different spin coupling schemes showed that values appropriate for two-center spin eigenfunctions gave consistently better results than values calculated with the local spin operator. The effect of basis set was found to be very small. A brief analysis of these findings is given.