Probing structural and electronic properties of divalent metal Mg_(n+1) and SrMgn (n=2–12) clusters and their anions

Divalent metal clusters have received great attention due to the interesting size-induced nonmetal-to-metal transition and fascinating properties dependent on cluster size,shape,and doping.In this work,the combination of the CALYPSO code and density functional theory(DFT)optimization is employed to explore the structural properties of neutral and anionic Mg_(n+1) and SrMgn(n=2-12)clusters.The results exhibit that as the atomic number of Mg increases,Sr atoms are more likely to replace Mg atoms located in the skeleton convex cap.By analyzing the binding energy,second-order energy difference and the charge transfer,it can be found the SrMg9 cluster with tower framework presents outstanding stability in a studied size range.Further,bonding characteristic analysis reveals that the stability of SrMg9 can be improved due to the strong s-p interaction among the atomic orbitals of Sr and Mg atoms.

Density functional investigation on structural and electronic properties of small bimetallic Pb_(n)Ag_(n)(n=2–12)clusters

Structural and electronic properties of PbnAgn(n=2–12)clusters were investigated by density functional theory with generalized gradient approximation at BLYP level in DMol3 program package.The optimized bimetallic PbnAgn(n=2–12)clusters were viewed as the initial structures,then,those were calculated by ab initio molecular dynamics(AIMD)to search possible global minimum energy structures of PbnAgn clusters,finally,the ground state structures of PbnAgn(n=2–12)clusters were achieved.According to the structural evolution of lowest energy structures,Ag atoms prefer gather in the central sites while Pb atoms prefer external positions in PbnAgn(n=2–12)clusters,which is in excellent agreement with experimental results from literature and the application in metallurgy.The average binding energies,HOMO-LUMO gaps,vertical ionization potentials,vertical electron affinities,chemical hardnessη,HOMO orbits,LUMO orbits and density of states of PbnAgn(n=2–12)clusters were calculated.The results indicate that the values of HOMO-LUMO gaps,vertical ionization potentials,vertical electron affinities and chemical hardnessηshow obvious odd-even oscillations when n≤5,PbnAgn(n=2–12)clusters become less chemically stable and show insulator-to-metal transition with the variation of cluster size n,PbnAgn(n≥9)cluster are good candidates to study the properties of PbAg alloys.Those can be well explained by the density of states(DOS)distributions of Pb atoms and Ag atoms between–0.5 Ha and 0.25 Ha in PbnAgn(n=2–12)clusters.

The geometry structures and electronic properties of Li_mB_n(m+n=12) clusters

The geometric structures, electronic properties, total and binding energies, harmonic frequencies, the highest occupied molecular orbital to the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy gaps, and the vertical ionization potential energies of small LimBn （m＋ n = 12） clusters were investigated by the density functional theory B3LYP with a 6-31 I＋G （2d, 2p） basis set. All the calculations were performed using the Gaussian09 program. For the study of the LimBn clusters, the global minimum of the B 12 cluster was chosen as the starting point and the boron atoms were gradually replaced by Li atoms. The results showed that as the number of Li atoms increased, the stability of the LimBn cluster decreased and the physical and chemical properties became more active. In addition, on average there was a large charge transfer from the Li atoms to the B atoms.