Search results for "Valence electron"
showing 10 items of 56 documents
Half-Heusler compounds: novel materials for energy and spintronic applications
2012
Half-Heusler compounds are an impressive class of materials with a huge potential for different applications such as future energy applications and for spintronics. The semiconducting Heusler compounds can be identified by the number of valence electrons. The band gap can be tuned between 0 and 4 eV by the electronegativity difference of the constituents. Magnetism can be introduced in these compounds by using rare-earth elements, manganese or ‘electron’ doping. Thus, there is a great interest in the fields of thermoelectrics, solar cells and diluted magnetic semiconductors. The combination of different properties such as superconductivity and topological edge states leads to new multifunct…
Coupled-Cluster study of ‘no-pair’ bonding in the tetrahedral Cu4 cluster
2011
Abstract Ab initio Coupled-Cluster calculations with single and double excitations and perturbative correction to the triple, CCSD(T), have been carried out for the high-spin electronic state, ( 5 A 2 ) , of the copper cluster Cu 4 in its tetrahedral arrangement. Like alkali metals clusters, tetrahedral Cu 4 presents a bound quintet state, i.e., a situation where all the valence electrons are unpaired. This rather exotic wavefunction, also known as no-pair bonding state, is examined in detail. The influence of the basis set is also analyzed, as well as the importance of the core correlation and the effect of the basis-set superposition errors.
Preparative and Electrochemical Investigations on the Electron Sponge Behavior of Cobalt Telluride Clusters: CO Substitution in[Co11Te7(CO)10]n− Ions…
2003
The reaction of the cluster salts [Cp* 2 Nb(CO) 2 ] n [Co 1 1 Te 7 (CO) 1 0 ] (Cp* = C 5 Me 5 ; n = 1, 2) with excess PMe 2 Ph gave the neutral, dark brown clusters [Co 1 1 Te 7 (CO) 6 (PMe 2 Ph) 4 ] (5) and [Co 1 1 Te 7 (CO) 5 (PMe 2 Ph) 5 ] (6) with 147 metal valence electrons. The new compounds were characterized by IR spectroscopy, elemental analyses, and mass spectrometry. The molecular structure of 6 was determined by X+ray crystallography. Like its precursor anion, it consists of a pentagonal-prismatic [Co 1 1 Te 7 ] core, but with a ligand sphere composed of five CO and five PMe 2 Ph ligands. Detailed electrochemical studies of both reactions reveal that a stepwise substitution of C…
A hollow tetrahedral cage of hexadecagold dianion provides a robust backbone for a tuneable sub-nanometer oxidation and reduction agent via endohedra…
2007
We show, via density functional theory calculations, that dianionic Au16(2-) cluster has a stable, hollow, Td symmetric cage structure, stabilized by 18 delocalized valence electrons. The cage maintains its robust geometry, with a minor Jahn-Teller deformation, over several charge states (q = -1,0,+1), forming spin doublet, triplet and quadruplet states according to the Hund's rules. Endohedral doping of the Au16 cage by Al or Si yields a geometrically robust, tuneable oxidation and reduction agent. Si@Au16 is a magic species with 20 delocalized electrons. We calculate a significant binding energy for the anionic Si@Au16/O2- complex and show that the adsorbed O2 is activated to a superoxo-s…
Multicollision-induced dissociation of multiply charged gold clusters, Aun2+, n = 7–35, and Aun3+, n = 19–35
2000
Abstract Multicollision-induced dissociation (MCID) has been applied to gold clusters, Au n 2+ (n = 7–35) and Au n 3+ (n = 19–35) stored in a Penning trap. By application of ion cyclotron resonance excitation and pulses of argon collision gas, fragmentation yields have been measured as a function of the clusters’ kinetic energy. The corresponding dissociation energies have been determined by use of the impulsive collision theory and the quantum Rice–Ramsperger–Kassel (RRK) model for the energy transfer to internal cluster modes and for delayed dissociation, respectively. As compared to earlier measurements of singly charged gold clusters the variation of the stability as a function of clust…
Metal Cluster — Surface Interaction: Simple Models and Ab Initio Calculations
1999
We review recent ab initio atomistic calculations on interactions between metal clusters and electronically inert (insulating) substrates. The model system is sodium clusters on the sodium-chloride (001) surface. This system provides an example of weak cluster-support interaction (physisorption) which can however be easily modified by introducing color centers at the surface, resulting in chemisorption of sodium adatom or cluster. The results obtained from atomistic calculations can be used for constructing simple jellium-type models for the adsorbed cluster. These models allow for systematic investigations in a large size-range of clusters on the shell structure, dimensionality, and stabil…
High-spin states in tetrahedral X4 clusters (X = H, Li, Na, K)
2010
The high-spin electronic states for lithium, sodium, and potassium four-atom clusters were studied. In particular, we performed coupled cluster geometry optimization of the quintet state in tetrahedral geometry. The quintet state of these systems is characterized by having all the valence electron Unpaired, giving rise to the so-called no-pair bonding. Single-point full configuration interaction computations on the equilibrium geometries for the various Clusters are also presented. The analysis of the valence orbitals in a localized representation confirms the importance of the p atomic orbitals to explain this unusual type of bond. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem 110: 8…
Semiconducting half-Heusler and LiGaGe structure type compounds
2009
Compounds with LiAlSi (half-Heusler) and LiGaGe structure types have been investigated by means of band structure calculations. The LiAlSi structure type is known as the half-Heusler structure type, whereas LiGaGe is a closely related hexagonal variant. A remarkable feature of some XYZ half-Heusler compounds with 8 and 18 valence electrons is, that despite being composed of only metallic elements, they are semiconductors. More than 100 semiconducting compounds within these structure types are known. LiGaGe compounds have an additional degree of freedom, namely the degree of puckering of the layers. These compounds can become semiconducting at a certain degree of puckering. Half-metallic beh…
Amorphous Ge15Te85: density functional, high-energy x-ray and neutron diffraction study
2011
The structure and electronic properties of amorphous Ge15Te85 have been studied by combining density functional (DF) simulations with high-energy x-ray and neutron diffraction measurements. Three models with 560 atoms have been constructed using reverse Monte Carlo methods constrained to (1) agree with the experimental structure factors S(Q), and have (2) energies close to the DF minimum and (3) a semiconducting band structure. The best structure is based on the melt-quenched DF structure and has a small number of Ge–Ge bonds. It shows interlocking networks of Te and GeTe with a significant fraction (22–24%) of voids (cavities). Ge occurs with both tetrahedral and 3 + 3 defective octahedral…
Magnetic and electronic properties of double perovskites and estimation of their Curie temperatures byab initiocalculations
2008
First principles electronic structure calculations have been carried out on ordered double perovskites Sr_2B'B"O_6 (for B' = Cr or Fe and B" 4d and 5d transition metal elements) with increasing number of valence electrons at the B-sites, and on Ba_2MnReO_6 as well as Ba_2FeMoO_6. The Curie temperatures are estimated ab initio from the electronic structures obtained with the local spin-density functional approximation, full-potential generalized gradient approximation and/or the LDA+U method (U - Hubbard parameter). Frozen spin-spirals are used to model the excited states needed to evaluate the spherical approximation for the Curie temperatures. In cases, where the induced moments on the oxy…