Norm-Conserving Pseudopotentials and Basis Sets to Explore Actinide Chemistry in Complex Environments

We have developed a new set of norm-conserving pseudopotentials and companion Gaussian basis sets for the actinide (An) series (Ac - Lr) using the Goedecker, Teter and Hutter (GTH) formalism with the Perdew, Burke and Ernzerhof (PBE) exchange-correlation functional of generalized gradient approximation (GGA). To test the accuracy and reliability of the newly parameterized An-GTH pseudopotentials and basis sets, a variety of benchmarks on actinide-containing molecules are carried out and compared to all-electron and available experimental results. The new pseudopotentials include both medium- ([Xe]4f14) and large-core ([Xe]4f145d10) options that have successfully reproduced structures and energetics, particularly redox processes. The medium-core size set, in particular, reproduce all-electron calculations over multiple oxidation states from 0 to VII, whereas the large-core set is suitable only for the early series elements and low oxidation states. The underlying reason for these transferability issues are discussed in detail. This work fills a critical void in the literature for studying the chemistry of 5f-block elements in condensed phase.