Effects of 5f-elements on electronic structures and spectroscopic properties of gold superatom model**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11374004), the Science and Technology Development Program of Jilin Province, China (Grant No. 20150519021JH), the Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation, China (Grant No. 142001), and the Support from the High Performance Computing Center (HPCC) of Jilin

Abstract

5f-elements encaged in a gold superatomic cluster are capable of giving rise to unique optical properties due to their hyperactive valence electrons and great radial components of 5f/6d orbitals. Herein, we review our first-principles studies on electronic structures and spectroscopic properties of a series of actinide-embedded gold superatomic clusters with different dimensions. The three-dimensional (3D) and two-dimensional (2D) superatom clusters possess the 18-electron configuration of 1S21P61D10 and 10-electron configuration of 1S21P41D4, respectively. Importantly, their electronic absorption spectra can also be effectively explained by the superatom orbitals. Specifically, the charge transfer (CT) transitions involved in surface-enhance Raman spectroscopy (SERS) spectra for 3D and 2D structures are both from the filled 1D orbitals, providing the enhancement factors of the order of ∼ 104 at 488 nm and ∼ 105 at 456 nm, respectively. This work implies that the superatomic orbital transitions involved in 5f-elements can not only lead to a remarkable spectroscopic performance, but also a new direction for optical design in the future.