Structural and electronic properties of an azamacrocycle, C26H18N6

We compute the structure of an azamacrocycle, C26H18N6. Two approximatively planar elliptical structures with C2 or CI symmetry are found to be nearly degenerate. The roughly circular conformation observed in metal complexes turns out to be ~ 0.6 eV higher in energy. We suggest that this difference is mainly due to electrostatic interactions. We discuss the results on various levels of theory (Hartree-Fock, local density and gradient corrected density functional calculations).