Reduced‐size polarized basis sets for calculations of molecular electric properties. II. Simulation of the Raman spectra

The accuracies of the calculated vibrational frequencies and Raman intensities given by two new, highly compact Pol‐type basis sets, Z2PolX and Z3PolX, have been determined and compared to the 6‐31G(d), PolX, and aug‐cc‐pVTZ basis sets. Calculation of accurate Raman intensities has previously required large basis sets, but the ZmPolX basis sets are smaller even than PolX, which are the most compact basis sets able to calculate accurate Raman intensities. For the largest compound studied, C5H10O2, Z3PolX required more than an order of magnitude less CPU time than PolX, which has been shown to be 10 times faster than aug‐cc‐pVTZ. Two sets of test molecules were studied: one was a series of small molecules for which experimental values for absolute Raman activities were available; the second was a series of medium‐sized molecules (mainly common organic solvents) where only relative Raman band intensities were available. The accuracies of the Raman intensities given by both of the ZmPolX basis sets were good compared to those of the PolX and aug‐cc‐pVTZ sets, and much better than the 6‐31G(d) values. The errors in even unscaled frequency values <2000 cm−1 were also acceptable and were slightly lower for Z3PolX than Z2PolX (30 cm−1 vs. 48 cm−1). The combination of good intensity and frequency data meant that for the medium‐sized organic molecules there was a close correspondence between the simulated Raman spectra and experimental data, and that the observed bands could easily be assigned on the basis of these calculations. Achieving this level of accuracy in the simulations at modest computational cost should now allow computational methods to be combined with experimental Raman studies much more widely than is currently the case. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 26: 154–159, 2005