An approach to develop chemical intuition for atomistic electron transport calculations using basis set rotations

Single molecule conductance measurements are often interpreted through computational modeling, but the complexity of these calculations makes it difficult to directly link them to simpler concepts and models. Previous work has attempted to make this connection using maximally localized Wannier functions and symmetry adapted basis sets, but their use can be ambiguous and non-trivial. Starting from a Hamiltonian and overlap matrix written in a hydrogen-like basis set, we demonstrate a simple approach to obtain a new basis set that is chemically more intuitive and allows interpretation in terms of simple concepts and models. By diagonalizing the Hamiltonians corresponding to each atom in the molecule, we obtain a basis set that can be partitioned into pseudo-σ and -π and allows partitioning of the Landuaer-Büttiker transmission as well as create simple Hückel models that reproduce the key features of the full calculation. This method provides a link between complex calculations and simple concepts and models to provide intuition or extract parameters for more complex model systems.