Molecular structure and vibrational analysis of 5-nitro-6-methyluracil molecule based on monomer, dimer and trimer calculations

Molecular structure and vibrational spectra of 5-nitro-6-methyluracil molecule have been studied by the simulation of its monomer, dimer and trimer forms using DFT and MP2 methods with 6-311G(d,p) basis set. Anharmonic force field calculations have been carried out for the isolated monomer, while the calculations on dimer and trimer have been done in the harmonic approximation. An accurate numerical integration grid has been used for geometry optimization as well as frequency calculation. Anharmonic vibrational frequencies have been computed using VPT2 algorithm (Barone’s method) as well as VSCF and VSCF-PT2 approaches. These methods yield results that are in remarkable agreement with the experiment. The coupling strengths between pair of modes have been also calculated using coupling integral based on 2MR-QFF approximation. The vibrational assignments have been made with the help of potential energy distribution values and animated modes.