The high-pressure electronic structure of the [Ni(ptdt)2] organic molecular conductor

Abstract

Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. The electronic structure of the single component molecular crystal [Ni(ptdt) 2 ] (ptdt = propylenedithiotetrathiafulvalenedithiolate) is determined at ambient and high pressure using density functional theory. The electronic structure of this crystal is found to be of the "crossing bands" type with respect to the dispersion of the HOMO and LUMO, resulting in a small, non-zero density of states at the Fermi energy at ambient pressure, indicating that this crystal is a "poor quality" metal, and is consistent with the crystal's resistivity exhibiting a semiconductor-like temperature dependence. The ambient pressure band structure is found to be predominantly one-dimensional, reflecting enhanced intermolecular interactions along the [100] stacking direction. Our calculations indicate that the band structure becomes two-dimensional at high pressures and reveals the role of shortened intermolecular contacts in this phenomenon. The integrity of the molecular structure is found to be maintained up to at least 22 GPa. The electronic structure is found to exhibit a crossing bands nature up to 22 GPa, where enhanced intermolecular interactions increase the Brillouin zone centre HOMO-LUMO gap from 0.05 eV at ambient pressure to 0.15 eV at 22 GPa; this enhanced HOMO-LUMO interaction ensures that enhancement of a metallic state in this crystal cannot be simply achieved through the application of pressure, but rather requires some rearrangement of the molecular packing. Enhanced HOMO-LUMO interactions result in a small density of states at the Fermi energy for the high pressure window 19.8-22 GPa, and our calculations show that there is no change in the nature of the electronic structure at the Fermi energy for these pressures. We correspondingly find no evidence of an electronic semiconducting-metal insulator transition for these pressures, contrary to recent experimental evidence [Cui et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 131, 6358 (2009)].

Off-the-shelf DFT-DISPersion methods: Are they now “on-trend” for organic molecular crystals?

“…In addition, many-body dispersion inherently includes screened polarizability effects, which are prevalent in, for example 2D nanomaterial systems 49,50 where long-range charge fluctuations are present. Considering the organic molecular crystals under focus in our research, it could be possible to find 2D planes of aligned molecules forming a metallic-like layer 51 , and therefore enhanced, screened polarizability. Essentially, the many-body effects become significant in the absence of other interactions dominating, such as covalent and hydrogen-bonding and where a system is strongly anisotropic.…”