Jones and magnetoelectric birefringence of pure substances — A computational study

Abstract

We present the first investigation of condensed-phase effects on the Jones (and magnetoelectric) birefringence of a set of nondipolar (CCl4 and CS2) and dipolar (nitro- and chloro-benzene) molecules using a recent implementation of the polarizable continuum model for cubic response functions at the time-dependent density-functional level of theory. The condensed-phase calculations have been performed on the neat liquids of the sample molecules using a nonequilibrium solvation scheme to properly account for the solute–solvent interactions in the presence of a frequency-dependent electromagnetic field. It is demonstrated that the condensed-phase effects as modelled by the polarizable continuum model can be substantial, increasing the observable birefringence by more than sixty percent in the case of CCl4, and by a factor of more than three for CS2. Solvent effects are also substantial for the dipolar molecules, leading to an enhancement by a factor of roughly five for nitrobenzene and by a bit less than 30% for chlorobenzene. Comparison is made with the results of experiment. Our calculated anisotropies confirm that the effect is below current experimental detection limits for CCl4 and CS2. We compute Jones constants of the same order of magnitude as the upper limits given in experiment for nitro- and chlorobenzene.