Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.105, No.17, 4300-4307, 2001
Intramolecular electronic redistribution coupled to hydrogen bonding: An important mechanism for the "neutral-to-ionic" transition
The part played by the electronic interactions in the uncommon "neutral-to-ionic" (N-1) structural transition occurring in some mixed stack organic compounds, such as tetrathiafulvalene-chloranil (TTF-CA), is analyzed by ab initio electronic structure calculations. It is shown that the charge-transfer variation occurring in the valence band along the mixed stacks of donor and acceptor molecules is coupled via an intramolecular mechanism to a deformation of the electronic cloud in lower bands. The lower bands affected by this redistribution are also those which are implicated in the interstack hydrogen bonds, and a charge-transfer increase produces a strengthening of these hydrogen bonds. This important mechanism, which associates the charge-transfer variation to the anisotropic lattice contractions in the crystal, has never been considered up to now.