Density functional study on structural and electronic properties of bimetallic gold--yttrium clusters: comparison with pure gold and yttrium clusters

Employing first-principles methods, based on the density functional theory, this paper investigates the ground state geometric and electronic properties of pure gold clusters, pure yttrium clusters and gold clusters doped each with one yttrium atom. It is shown that the average bond lengths in the Augold--yttrium bimetallic cluster, density functional theory, HOMO--LUMO gap, equilibrium structureProject supported by the Education Committee of Chongqing (Grant No KJ051105) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No 10276028).3640, 3640B, 3120A, 3130J9/1/2007 12:00:00 AMEmploying first-principles methods, based on the density functional theory, this paper investigates the ground state geometric and electronic properties of pure gold clusters, pure yttrium clusters and gold clusters doped each with one yttrium atom. It is shown that the average bond lengths in the Augold--yttrium bimetallic cluster, density functional theory, HOMO--LUMO gap, equilibrium structureProject supported by the Education Committee of Chongqing (Grant No KJ051105) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No 10276028).3640, 3640B, 3120A, 3130J9/1/2007 12:00:00 AMEmploying first-principles methods, based on the density functional theory, this paper investigates the ground state geometric and electronic properties of pure gold clusters, pure yttrium clusters and gold clusters doped each with one yttrium atom. It is shown that the average bond lengths in the Au$_{n - 1}$Y($n \le $9) bimetallic clusters are shorter than those in the corresponding pure gold and yttrium clusters. The most stable isomers of the yttrium-doped gold clusters tend to equally delocalize valence s, p and d electrons of the constituent atoms over the entire structure. The Y atom has maximum number of neighbouring Au atom, which tends to be energetically favourable in the lowest-energy equilibrium structures, because the Au--Y bond is stronger than the Au-Au bond. The three-dimensional isomers of Au$_{n - 1}$Y structures are found in an early appearance starting at $n$=5 (Au$_{4}$Y). Calculated vertical ionization potential and electron affinities as a function of the cluster size show odd-even oscillatory behaviour, and resemble pure gold clusters. However, one of the most striking feature of pure yttrium clusters is the absence of odd-even alternation, in agreement with mass spectrometric observations. The HOMO--LUMO gap of Au$_{3}$Y is the biggest in all the doped Au$_{n - 1}$Y($n \le $9) bimetallic clusters.     

Electron spin resonance study of the Ba-doping manganite Nd0.5Sr0.5MnO3

We have performed magnetization measurements and electron spin resonance （ESR） on polycrystalline manganites of Nd0.5Sr0.5-xBaxMnO3 （x = 0.1）. Phase separation and phase transitions are observed from the susceptibility and the ESR spectra data. Between 260 K （～ Tc） and 185 K （～ TN）, the system coexists of the paramagnetic phase and the ferromagnetic （FM） phase. Between 185 K and 140 K, the system coexists of the FM phase and the antiferromagnetic （AFM） phase. These results indicate that the system has a very complex magnetic state due to the origin of the instability stemming from manganite Nd0.5Sr0.4Ba0.1MnO3 by partially substituting the larger Ba^2＋ ions for the smaller Sr^2＋ ions.     

Judd--Ofelt analysis of spectra and experimental evaluation of laser performance of Tm3+ doped Lu2SiO5 crystal

This paper reports that the Tm^3＋：Lu2SiO5 （Tm：LSO） crystal is grown by Czochralski technique. The roomtemperature absorption spectra of Tm：LSO crystal are measured on a b-cut sample with 4 at.% thulium. According to the obtained Judd-Ofelt intensity parameters Ω2=9.3155×10^-20 cm^2, Ω4=8.4103×10^-20 cm^2, Ω6=1.5908×10^-20 cm^2, the fluorescence lifetime is calculated to be 2.03 ms for ^3F4 → ^3H6 transition, and the integrated emission cross section is 5.81×10^-18 cm^2. Room-temperature laser action near 2μm under diode pumping is experimentally evaluated in Tm：LSO. An optical-optical conversion efficiency of 9.1% and a slope efficiency of 16.2% are obtained with continuouswave maximum output power of 0.67 W. The emission wavelengths of Tm：LSO laser are centred around 2.06μm with spectral bandwidth of -13.6 nm.     

Spontaneous magnetization and resistivity jumps in bilayered manganite （La0.8Eu0.2）4/3Sr5/3Mn2O7 single crystals

Owing to the inhomogeneous state resulting from the doping of a small number of Eu ions into Laa/3Sr5/3Mn2O7, from the resulting single crystal （La0.8Eu0.2）a/3Sr5/3Mn2O7 we have observed the magnetization jump, the resistivity jump, as well as the relaxation phenomena. For （Lao.sEuo.2）a/3Sr5/3Mn2O7, it has a very delicate ground state due to the interplays among spin, charge, orbital, lattice degrees of freedom. Consequently, the magnetization state is sensitive to temperature, magnetic field, as well as time. Meanwhile, the evolution of the magnetization with time shows a spontaneous jump when both the temperature and the magnetic field are constant. Similar step-like behaviours are also observed in resistivity. All these results suggest that Eu doping can greatly modulate the physical properties of Laa/3Sr5/3Mn2O7 and cause such interesting behaviours.     

First-principles investigation of BAs and BxGa1-xAs alloys

First-principles investigation of BAs and BxGa1-xAs alloys Using first-principles calculations in the generalized gradient approximation, the electronic properties of BAs and BxGa1-xAs alloys are studied. At the Brillouin-zone centre, the lowest conduction band is the three-degenerate p-like Г15c state rather than s-like Г1c state, and the conduction band minimum （CBM） is along the A line between the Г and X points-at approximately 11/14（1,0,0）2π/a. With boron content at 0%-18.75%, BxGa1-xAs alloys have a small （2.6 eV） and relatively composition-independent band-gap bowing parameter, the band-gap increases monotonically by -18meV/B% with increasing boron content. In addition, the formation enthalpies of mixing for BxGa1-xAs alloys with boron content at 6.25% and 12.5% are calculated, and the large formation enthalpies may explain the difficulty in alloying boron to GaAs.     

Density-functional investigation of 3d,4d,5d impurity doped Au6 clusters

The general features of the geometries and electronic properties for 3d,4d,and 5d transition-metal atom doped Au 6 clusters are systematically investigated by using relativistic all-electron density functional theory in the generalized gradient approximation(GGA).A number of structural isomers are considered to search the lowest-energy structures of M@Au 6 clusters(M=3d,4d and 5d transition-metal atoms),and the transition metal atom locating in the centre of an Au 6 ring is found to be in the ground state for all the M@Au 6 clusters.All doped clusters,expect for Pd@Au 6,show large relative binding energies compared with a pure Au 7 cluster,indicating that doping by 3d,4d,5d transition-metal atoms could stabilize the Au 6 ring and promote the formation of a new binary alloy cluster.     

Low-field electron emission from pinaster-like MoO2 nanoarrays as two-stage emitters

Low-field electron emission is obtained from the pinaster-like MoO2 nanoarrays. The turn-on field of the pinasterlike MoO2 nanoarrays is found to be as low as 2.39 V/μm with the current density of 10μA/cm2. The enhancement factor is extracted to be 3590 from the Fowler-Nordheim plot. These excellent emission properties are attributed to the special structure of the pinaster-like MoO2 nanoarrays and confirmed by the calculation in the frame of the two -stage model. Our results show that the pinaster-like MoO2 nanoarrays are promising candidate in realizing field emission displays.     

Growth of Mn5Ge3 ultrathin film on Ge（111）

The growth of Mn5Ge3 ultrathin films with different thicknesses, prepared by solid phase epitaxy, is studied. The results of scanning tunnelling microscopy and low energy electron diffraction studies show that the film can be formed and it is terminated with a （√3 × √3） R30° surface reconstruction when the thickness of Mn exceeds 3 monolayers. The magnetic properties show that the Curie temperature is about 300 K and the T^2-dependent behaviour is observed to remain up to 220 K.     

Effects of exchange interaction and spin-fluctuation on the magnetic and magneto-optic properties of NdF3

The exchange interaction between the electrons in the different magnetic ions and the spin-fluctuation of the magnetic ions exist in the paramagnetic media NdF3. The exchange interaction between the electrons in the different magnetic ions may be equivalent to an effective field Hin that is in direct proportion to the magnetization M. The spin-fluctuation of the magnetic ions leads the coefficient of the effective field to vary with temperature. The effective field is given as Hin = -（0.75 ＋ 0.22T） × 10^-5M in NdF3. When the secondary crystal field effect is taken into account, the magnetic susceptibility and Verdet constant are calculated for NdF3 by means of the effective field Hin and the applied field He. The calculated results are in agreement with the measured ones.     

The effects of interstitial oxygen on superconducting electronic phases in strontium and oxygen co-doped La1.937Sr0.063CuO4＋δ

Strontium and oxygen co-doped La1.937Sr0.063CuO4＋δ superconductor with Tc≈ 40K, which is obtained by oxidizing strontium-doped starting ceramic sample La1.937Sr0.063CuO4 in NaC10 solution, is annealed under different conditions to allow interstitial oxygen to redistribute. The evolution of the intrinsic superconducting property with the oxygen redistribution is studied in detail by magnetic measurements in various fields. It is found that there occurs the electronic phase separation from the single superconducting phase with Tc ≈ 40 K into two coexisting superconducting states with values of Tc： 15 and 40K or of 15 and 35 K in this system, depending on annealing condition. Our results indicate that the 15, 35 and 40 K superconducting phases associated with the excess oxygen redistribution are all thermodynamically meta-stable intrinsic states in this Sr/O co-doped cuprate.     

Elastic scattering of two H（^2Sg） and N（^4Su） atoms at low temperatures and accurate spectroscopic parameters of NH （X^3∑^-） radical

This paper reports that the interaction potential for the X3Z- state of NH radical is constructed at the CCSD（T）/ cc-PV6Z level of theory. Using this potential, this paper calculates the spectroscopic parameters （De, Re, ωe, ωeχe, αe and Be） and their values are of 3.578eV, 0.10368nm, 3286.833cm^-1, 78.433cm^-1, 0.6469cm^-1 and 16.6735cm^-1 respectively, which are in excellent agreement with the experiments. Then the total of 14 vibrational states has been found when J=0 by solving the radial Schrodinger equation of nuclear motion. For each vibrational state, the vibrational manifolds are reported for the first time. And last, the total cross sections, s-wave, p-wave and d-wave cross sections are computed for the elastic collisions between two ground-state atoms （hydrogen and nitrogen） at low temperatures. It finds that the total elastic cross sections are dominated by s-wave scattering when the collision energy is below 10^-6a.u. The pronounced shape resonance is found at energy of 6.1 × 10^-6a.u. Calculations have shown that the shape resonance comes from the p-wave contributions.     

Light scattering of nanocrystalline TiO2 film used in dye-sensitized solar cells

This paper studies the light scattering and adsorption of nanocrystalline TiO2 porous films used in dye-sensitized solar cells composed of anatase and/or rutile particles by using an optical four-flux radiative transfer model. These light properties are difficult to measure directly on the functioning solar cells and they can not be calculated easily from the first-principle computational or quantitative theoretical evaluations. These simulation results indicate that the light scattering of 1 25 nm TiO2 particles is negligible, but it is effective in the range of 80 and 180 nm. A suitable mixture of small particles （10 nm radius）, which are resulted in a large effective surface, and of larger particles （150 nm radius）, which are effective light scatterers, have the potential to enhance solar absorption significantly. The futile crystals have a larger refractive index and thus the light harvest of the mixtures of such larger rutile and relatively small anatase particles is improved in comparison with that of pure anatase films. The light absorption of the 10μm double-layered films is also examined. A maximal light absorption of double-layered film is gotten when the thickness of the first layer of 10 urn-sized anatase particles is comparable to that of the second larger rutile layer.     

Effect of magnetic field on the spin-Peierls transition in single-crystal CuGeO

This paper reports that high quality CuGeO3 single crystals were successfully grown by floating-zone technique and the magnetic property was studied. The temperature dependence of magnetic susceptibility below the spin-Peierls （SP） transition temperature （Tsp） under magnetic fields applying along both the a- and c-axis direction can be fitted well by a model of noninteracting dimmers. The spin gap derived from the fitting is consistent with other reports. There is a very weak anisotropy in the fitting parameters for different directions, which should be expected from a SP system. A small upturn in susceptibility at low temperature due to paramagnetic impurities and/or defects can be observed. A suppression of the upturn by magnetic field is first discovered in this system and the possible origins for this suppression are discussed.     

Self-organization effect in poly（3-hexylthiophene）： methanofullerenes solar cells

This paper studies the self-organization of the polymer in solar cells based on poly（3-hexylthiophene）： [6, 6]-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester by controlling the growth rate of active layer. These blend films are characterized by UV-vis absorption spectroscopy, charge-transport dark J - V curve, x-ray diffraction pattern curve, and atomic force microscopy. The results indicate that slowing down the drying process of the wet films leads to an enhanced selforganization, which causes an increased hole transport. Increased incident light absorption, higher carrier mobility, and balanced carrier transport in the active layer explain the enhancement in the device performance, the power conversion efficiency of 3.43% and fill factor up to 64.6% are achieved under Air Mass 1.5, 100 mW/cm^2.     

Density functional study on chirospectra of hydrogen-bonded systems X-（H2O）3（X=F,Cl,Br,I）

This paper calculates the molecular structures,infrared,Raman,circular dichroism spectra and optical rotatory powers of some hydrogen-bonded supramolecular systems as a cyclic water trimer,(H2O)3 and its pyramidal halide complexes,X-(H2O)3(X = F,Cl,Br,I) with the gradient-corrected density functional theory method at the B3LYP/6-311++G(2d,2p) and B3LYP/Aug-cc-pVTZ levels.It finds that the complexation of halide anions with the water trimer can efficiently modulate the chirally optical behaviors.The calculated vibrational circular dichroism spectrum illuminates that the vibrational rotational strength of S(+)-(H2O)3 mostly originates from the O-H rocking modes,whereas chirality of S(-)-X-(H2O)3(X = F,Cl,Br,I) has its important origin in the O-H stretching modes.The calculated optical rotatory power demonstrates that S(+)-(H2O)3 and S(+)-F(H2O)3 are positively chiral,whereas S(-)-X-(H2O)3(X = Cl,Br,I) are negatively chiral.With the polarizable continuum model,calculated bulk solvent effect in the solvents water and carbontetrachloride and argon shows that the positive chirality of S(+)-(H2O)3 is enhanced and the negative chirality of S(-)-X-(H2O)3(X = Cl,Br,I) and the positive chirality of S(+)-F(H2O)3 are reduced with an augmentation of the solvent dielectric constant.     

Deceleration of a continuous-wave （CW） molecular beam with a single quasi-CW semi-Gaussian laser beam

We propose a promising scheme to decelerate a CW molecular beam by using a red-detuned quasi-cw semi-Gaussian laser beam （SGB）. We study the dynamical process of the deceleration for a CW deuterated ammonia （ND3） molecular beam by Monte-Carlo simulation method. Our study shows that we can obtain a ND3 molecular beam with a relative average kinetic energy loss of about 10% and a relative output molecular number of more than 90% by using a single quasi-cw SGB with a power of 1.5kW and a maximum optical well depth of 7.33mK.     

Elastic collisions of sulfur and hydrogen in their ground states at low temperatures and spectroscopic parameters of SH（X^2∏） radical

This paper constructs the interaction potential of the SH（X^2∏） radical by using the coupled-cluster singlesdoubles-approximate-triples theory combining the correlation-consistent quintuple basis set augmented with the diffuse functions, aug-cc-pV5Z, in the valence range. Employing the potential, it accurately determines the spectroscopic parameters. The present De, Re, ωe, ωeχe, ae and Be values are of 3.7767eV, 0.13424nm, 2699.846 cm^-1, 47.7055 cm^-1, 0.2639cm^-1 and 9.4414 cm^-1, respectively, which are in excellent agreement with those obtained from the measure- ments. A total of 19 vibrational states has been found when J = 0 by solving the radial SchrSdinger equation of nuclear motion. The complete vibrational levels, classical turning points, initial rotation and centrifugal distortion constants when J = 0 are reported for the first time, which are in good accord with the experimental results. The total and various partial-wave cross sections are computed for the elastic collisions of sulfur and hydrogen in their ground states at low temperatures when two atoms approach each other along the SH（X^2∏） potential energy curve. Over the impact energy range from 1.0×10^-11 to 1.0×10^-4 a.u., eight shape resonances have been found in the total elastic cross sections. For each shape resonance, the resonant energy is accurately calculated. Careful investigations have pointed out that these resonances result from the 1 = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 partial-wave contributions.     

First-principles calculations for elastic properties of rutile TiO2 under pressure

This paper studies the equilibrium structure parameters and the dependences of the elastic properties on pressure for rutile TiO2 by using the Cambridge Serial Total Energy Package （CASTEP） program in the frame of density functional theory. The obtained equilibrium structure parameters, bulk modulus B0 and its pressure derivative B′0 are in good agreement with experiments and the theoretical results. The six independent elastic constants of rutile TiO2 under pressure are theoretically investigated for the first time. It is found that, as pressure increases, the elastic constants C11, C33, C66, C12 and C13 increase, The variation of elastic constant C44 is not obvious and the anisotropy will weaken.     

Effect of Dy substitution on magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effects of Tb6Co1.67Si3 compounds

The magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of(Tb1-xDyx) 6 Co 1.67 Si 3(0 ≤ x ≤ 0.8) have been experimentally investigated.The compounds exhibit a Ce6Ni2Si3-type hexagonal structure and undergo a second-order magnetic transition.The Curie temperature decreases from ～ 187 K to 142 K as the content of Dy grows from 0 to 0.8.The maximal magnetic entropy change,for a field change of 0-5 T,varies between ～ 6.2 and ～ 7.4 J/kg.K,slightly decreasing when Dy is introduced.The substitution of Dy leads to a remarkable increase in refrigeration capacity(RC).A large RC value of ～ 626 J/kg is achieved for x = 0.4 under a field change of 0-5 T.     

Infrared-to-visible and infrared-to-violet upconversion fluorescence of rare earth doped LaF3 nanocrystals

This paper reports that hexagonal-phase LaF3：Yb0.20^3＋,Er0.02^3＋ and LaF3：Yb0.20^3＋, Tm0.02^3＋ nanocrystals （NCs） were synthesized via a hydrothermal method. The transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, powder x-ray diffraction, and thermogravimetric analysis are used to characterize the NCs. Under 980 nm excitation, the Yb^3＋/Er^3＋ and Yb^3＋/Tm^3＋ codoped NCs colloidal solutions present bright green and blue upconversion fluorescence, respectively. These NCs show efficient infrared-to-violet and infrared-to-visible upconversion. The upconversion fluo- rescence mechanisms of LaF2：Yb0.20^3＋, Er0.02^3＋ and LaF3：Yb0.20^3＋,Tm0.02^3＋ NCs are investigated with a 980-nm diode laser as excitation source.