Spin-orbit coupling in biradicals. 3. Heavy atom effects in carbenes

CASSCF(8,6)/cc-pVDZ calculations of electron spin-spin dipole interaction tensor in the lowest triplet state of CH2, CHF, CHCl, and CHBr, spin-orbit coupling of each of the three sublevels with the lowest singlet, and the triplet zero-field-splitting parameters are reported as a function of the valence angle, with bond lengths optimized for the triplet state at the B3LYP/cc-pVTZ level of approximation. Both the one- and the two-electron parts of the spin-orbit coupling Hamiltonian are used, and the contributions to spin-orbit coupling provided by each atom and orbital pair in Weinhold's natural hybrid orbital basis are evaluated separately. This provides intuitive insight into the origin of spinorbit coupling in carbenes and especially, the heavy atom effect of the substituent.