  Rational design of molecules and materials usually requires extensive
screening of molecular structures for the desired property. The inverse
approach to deduce a structure for a predefined property would be highly
desirable, but is, unfortunately, not well-defined. However, feasible
strategies for such an inverse design process may be successfully developed for
specific purposes. We discuss options for calculating 'jacket' potentials that
fulfill a predefined target requirement - a concept that we recently introduced
[T. Weymuth, M. Reiher, MRS Proceediungs, 2013, 1524,
DOI:10.1557/opl.2012.1764]. We consider the case of small-molecule activating
transition metal catalysts. As a target requirement we choose the vanishing
geometry gradients on all atoms of a subsystem consisting of a metal center
binding the small molecule to be activated. The jacket potential can be
represented within a full quantum model or by a sequence of approximations of
which a field of electrostatic point charges is the simplest. In a second step,
the jacket potential needs to be replaced by a chemically viable chelate-ligand
structure for which the geometry gradients on all of its atoms are also
required to vanish. In order to analyze the feasibility of this approach, we
dissect a known dinitrogen-fixating catalyst to study possible design
strategies that must eventually produce the known catalyst.
