Calculation of exchange coupling constants of transition metal complexes with DFT

A broken-symmetry method for the calculation of exchange coupling constants from DFT calculations, using the Heisenberg-Dirac-van Vleck spin Hamiltonian, has been validated for a dinuclear copper(II) complex. Hybrid functionals in combination with a large basis set on the metal centers and their first coordination sphere, and a smaller basis set on the ligand backbone are shown to be efficient and acceptable with respect to the computational cost and precision in comparison with experimental data. This method was thoroughly tested with a series of oligonuclear transition metal complexes with Cr(III), Cu(II), Fe(III), Mn(II), Mn(III), Mn(IV), Ni(II), and V(IV) as magnetic centers. The computed values of J are within approximately 50 cm(-1) of the experimental values for most of the examples; with combined basis sets, there generally is a similar accuracy to that obtained with a large basis set for the entire spin cluster but with significantly reduced computational expense. When the experimentally observed structural data are refined prior to the calculation of the exchange coupling constants, the computed values of J are in most cases in slightly better agreement with the experimental data than those obtained from single point calculations based on the X-ray data.