Ionization Potential, Electron Affinity, Electronegativity, Hardness, and Electron Excitation Energy:  Molecular Properties from Density Functional Theory Orbital Energies

Representative atomic and molecular systems, including various inorganic and organic molecules with covalent and ionic bonds, have been studied by using density functional theory. The calculations were done with the commonly used exchange-correlation functional B3LYP followed by a comprehensive analysis of the calculated highest-occupied and lowest-unoccupied Kohn−Sham orbital (HOMO and LUMO) energies. The basis set dependence of the DFT results shows that the economical 6-31+G* basis set is generally sufficient for calculating the HOMO and LUMO energies (if the calculated LUMO energies are negative) for use in correlating with molecular properties. The directly calculated ionization potential (IP), electron…