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Chemical Science EDGE ARTICLE - Chemistry Department at ...

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View Article OnlineDownloaded on 02/05/2013 21:36:10.Published on 06 September 2011 on http://pubs.rsc.org | doi:10.1039/C1SC00487EFig. 5 The SO splitting of the SR-ZORA Kohn–Sham MOs of [XAuCN] (X ¼ F, Cl, Br and I).calcul<strong>at</strong>ed to be close to 2 P 3/2 and may correspond to theshoulder on the E band (Fig. 1). For [IAuCN] , the HOMO-4has the same character and detachment from this orbital resultsin bands E and F in the PES spectra as well. The calcul<strong>at</strong>ed SOsplittings (Table 1) for the detachment from this orbital are ingood agreement with the observed values and the trend isconsistent with the (p–d)p X–Au bonding n<strong>at</strong>ure for thisorbital.The D bands of [ClAuCN] and [BrAuCN] correspond todetachment from HOMO-4, which is essentially a non-bondingcombin<strong>at</strong>ion between the halogen p z orbital and the s lone pairon CN. The HOMO-3 orbital of [IAuCN] has the same n<strong>at</strong>ure,corresponding to the C band in the PES spectrum. It should benoted th<strong>at</strong> the detachment cross section from this orbital isparticularly high for all three species. Overall, the calcul<strong>at</strong>edVDEs from the CASSCF/CCSD(T)/SO approach are in excellentagreement with the experimental d<strong>at</strong>a, allowing quantit<strong>at</strong>iveinterpret<strong>at</strong>ion of the PES spectra. The accuracy of this approachfor excited-st<strong>at</strong>es energies is also verified in other heavy-elementsystems. 34,35To understand the chemical bonding in the [XAuCN]complexes, we carried out popul<strong>at</strong>ion analyses and calcul<strong>at</strong>edbond orders using a variety of theoretical approaches. 36–45 Thecalcul<strong>at</strong>ed <strong>at</strong>omic charges and Au–X bond orders are given inTable 5. All methods show th<strong>at</strong> the Au <strong>at</strong>om carries little charge,while the neg<strong>at</strong>ive charge is mainly distributed between the X andCN ligands. The calcul<strong>at</strong>ed Wiberg, Mayer, and Gopin<strong>at</strong>han–Jug (G–J) bond orders of the Au–X bonds all show th<strong>at</strong> theF–Au bond is much weaker than the other X–Au bonds, with theI–Au bond order being the highest. The F–Au bond can beconsidered to be ionic due to the more polarized charge distribution.The calcul<strong>at</strong>ed electron localiz<strong>at</strong>ion functions (ELFs)(Fig. 6) show th<strong>at</strong> there is nearly no electron pairing densitybetween the Au and F <strong>at</strong>oms, whereas strong electron paringdensity exists between Au and CN in all four species regardless ofthe halogen ligands in [XAuCN] . Apparent electron pairingdensity exists between Au and the heavier halogen <strong>at</strong>oms, indic<strong>at</strong>ingth<strong>at</strong> the l<strong>at</strong>ter all have weak covalency. The electronpairing density increases from F to I and the I–Au bond has thehighest covalent character. The current observ<strong>at</strong>ions areconsistent with our recent studies of the AuI 2 and Au(CN) 2complexes, 9,15 and reveal the evolution from mainly ionicbonding between F–Au in [FAuCN] to rel<strong>at</strong>ively strong covalentbonding between I–Au in [IAuCN] .2106 | Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 2101–2108 This journal is ª The Royal Society of <strong>Chemistry</strong> 2011

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