Distribution Of Excess Electrons Research Articles

Density functional theory guide for copolymerization mechanism between allyl radical with radicalophile: photo-driven radical mediated [3 + 2] cyclization.

The challenge of activating inert allyl monomers for polymerization has persisted, prompting our proposal of the photo-driven radical mediated [3 + 2] cyclization reaction (PRMC). This innovative approach significantly expedites the homopolymerization of multi-allyl monomers, enabling the synthesis of embolic microspheres for hepatocellular carcinoma interventions. PRMC involves allyl monomers to form allylic radicals and then radicals participating in a cycloaddition reaction with unsaturated olefins as radicalophiles to form cyclopentane-based radical products. While extensively studied in the theoretical and experimental homopolymerization, PRMC's application in copolymerization remains unexplored. To address this knowledge gap, we explored the elementary reaction, selecting allyl methyl ether radicals (AMER) and α,β-unsaturated ketones as radicalophiles for copolymerization investigations by density functional theory (DFT) analysis. We quantified energy differences between ground and excited states of reactants, elucidated frontier molecular orbitals, and assessed thermodynamic data for copolymerization feasibility. We also evaluated the electronic properties of reactants, predicting the reactivity of radicalophiles and the interactions of intermolecular reactions. Additionally, we applied transition state theory and interaction/deformation models and conducted a local orbital analysis to comprehensively study excess electron distribution and gyration radius of cyclic radical product. Our findings offer vital insights into PRMC's potential in copolymerization. This research provides a robust theoretical foundation for practical application, enhancing the polymerization field. Based on density functional theory (DFT), the calculations were performed at the M06-2X/6-311 + + G(d,p) level in/by Gaussian 16 package. Subsequently, our analytical results apply time-dependent density-functional theory (TD-DFT) and solvent modeling (SMD). Single-point energy calculations determine the driving force behind the radicals' reaction with radicalophiles. Furthermore, we assessed the electrostatic potential (ESP) of the reactants. The results of the calculations were visualized by the Multiwfn 3.6 and VMD 1.9 programs.

Excess-electron capture and energy transfer to bulk water for aqueous DNA nucleotide.

We performed QM/MM simulations to investigate excess-electron attachment to four aqueous DNA nucleotide anions (dRT-). The negative QM/MM vertical electron affinities (-0.86 to -0.59 eV) reveal that aqueous dRT- anions improbably capture the excess electron near 0 eV. Comparing with the calculations in the gas phase and without the background charges, it can be found that first-shell water molecules have a larger contribution to the promotion of the ability of the excess-electron capture and the bulk-water polarization has a small effect on vertical electron affinities. The phosphate group hampers the attachment of the very low-energy excess electron to aqueous dRT-. The large adiabatic electron affinities (1.45-1.96 eV) and vertical detachment energies (1.92-2.44 eV) reveal that stable dRT2- dianions could be formed after dRT- anions catch the higher-energy excess electron (>0.59 eV). We computed the energy changes in the dRT2- structural relaxations. The QM-region conformational changes cause small energy alterations (-0.28 to 0.35 eV). The QM/MM energy decreases are 2.31-2.73 eV which mainly come from QM computations (3.49-4.00 eV) embedded in the background charges. The analysis of excess-electron distributions indicates that the polarization of bulk water and structural relaxations of dianions induce the excess-electron redistributions in the QM region and produce large QM-energy decreases. The MM energy changes are -1.27 to -1.11 eV for four aqueous dianions. The negative values demonstrate that the energy of the MM region would increase in dRT2- structural relaxations. In contrast with the values of the polarized QM computations, about 30% of the energy released by the QM region is transferred to bulk water in the MM region. The large energy dissipation probably suppresses DNA damage by the low-energy electron.

Enhanced strength and ductility of superhard boron carbide through injecting electrons

Injected electrons and holes play an important role in the mechanical properties of semiconductors because of the charged states in dislocation core. However, many superhard ceramics exhibit very limited plasticity at room temperature because of strong covalent and ionic bonding. To illustrate the effects of injected carriers on the mechanical properties of superhard ceramics, we selected boron carbide (B4C) as the prototype system and employed density functional theory (DFT) to examine the deformation and failure mechanism under neutral, injected-electron and injected-hole states. We find that both strength and ductility of B4C can be enhanced by injecting electrons, which arises from the modified failure mechanism due to the distribution of excess electrons. In contrast, injecting holes into B4C does not affect the failure mechanism, but causes increased strength and decreased ductility. Our study suggesting that injecting electrons is a promising way to tune mechanical properties of superhard ceramics.

Manipulating and Probing the Distribution of Excess Electrons in an Electrically Isolated Self-Assembled Molecular Structure.

Exploiting single electrical charges and their mutual interactions for computation has been proposed as a concept for future nanoelectronics. Controlling and probing charge transfer in electrically isolated atomic-scale structures are fundamental to push its experimental realization. Here, we controllably inject individual excess electrons and study their distribution in a self-assembled structure supported on a nonconductive substrate. The self-assembly ensures structural order down to the atomic scale. Depending on the charge state of the molecular assembly, intermolecular electron hopping and specific electron distributions have been resolved by atomic force microscopy, clarifying the charge-transfer pathways in the tunnel-coupled structure. When mutual charge interactions were exploited, control over specific charge distributions in the self-assembled structure has been achieved with single-molecule precision, paving the way toward the design of data processing platforms based on molecular nanostructures.

Vertical Ionization Energies and Electron Affinities of Native and Damaged DNA Bases, Nucleotides, and Pairs from Density Functional Theory Calculations: Model Assessment and Implications for DNA Damage Recognition and Repair.

To assess the effect of an 8-oxoguanine (8OG) defect base on the vertical ionization energies (VIEs) and electron affinities (VEAs) of DNA, density functional theory calculations were carried out for native and defect DNA bases and nucleotides, as well as for larger fragments containing one or multiple pairs. Absolute values of VIE and VEA under implicit solvation did not converge as a function of model size even up to the largest systems taken into consideration (3 base pairs/2 nucleotide pairs). Nonetheless, a consistent trend was observed for the relative difference in the VIE of native and damaged DNA showing that the defect was lowering the VIE by -0.1 eV for the largest fragments. This strongly suggests that the presence of 8OG makes the DNA more easily oxidizable and is in line with experimental evidence that a defect region can act as a sink of oxidative damage. In contrast, relative differences in VEA were very small and varied inconsistently around 0.01 eV. This seems to indicate that insertion of 8OG has a negligible effect on the electron capturing properties of DNA. Similar conclusions can be drawn by the adiabatic IEs and EAs computed for some of the larger fragments. Analysis of the hole and excess electron distributions was consistent with the above trends. The findings presented here support the possibility that a mechanism based on hole transport through DNA may be efficiently employed by the cell for the detection of defect bases.

First-principles calculations of water adsorption on perfect and defect WO3(0 0 1)

The interactions between water and semiconductor metal oxides are critical to photocatalytic reactions. In this work, the water adsorption on stoichiometric, non-stoichiometric and hydrogenated WO3(0 0 1) were investigated by first-principles calculations. The results show that the adsorption of the intact water molecule is more favorable than the adsorption of the dissociated ones on stoichiometric WO3(0 0 1) at different coverages. As the coverage of the water molecules on the surface increases, the molecular and dissociated states tend to co-exist on the stoichiometric WO3(0 0 1). In addition, the oxygen vacancy and hydrogen atom affect the electronic properties of WO3(0 0 1) by introducing the excess electrons, and the water adsorption could change distribution of excess electrons which are introduced by oxygen vacancy and hydrogen atoms. The water molecule can readily dissociate at the surface oxygen vacancy sites, while water molecules prefer remaining intact than being dissociated on the WO3(0 0 1) with sub-surface oxygen vacancy or hydrogen.

Stability of Excess Electrons Introduced by Ti Interstitial in Rutile TiO2(110) Surface

The surface chemistry of rutile TiO2(110) has long been ascribed to surface bridging oxygen vacancies (VO) and accompanying excess electrons. However, recently there has been debate whether titanium interstitials (Tiint), a subsurface defect, participates in the surface reactions of TiO2(110). We used a combination of ab initio molecular dynamics and static density functional theory calculations to systematically investigate the spatial distribution of excess electrons introduced by Tiint. We found that these excess electrons form polarons and that the most stable structure had one polaron located at the Tiint site, and the other three at second-layer Ti sites below five-coordinate Ti sites. This behavior of Tiint providing excess electrons to the near-surface region is similar to that of VO, which suggests that Tiint may contribute to the surface chemical reactions of TiO2(110).

Efficient floating diffuse functions for accurate characterization of the surface-bound excess electrons in water cluster anions.

In this work, the effect of diffuse function types (atom-centered diffuse functions versus floating functions and s-type versus p-type diffuse functions) on the structures and properties of three representative water cluster anions featuring a surface-bound excess electron is studied and we find that an effective combination of such two kinds of diffuse functions can not only reduce the computational cost but also, most importantly, considerably improve the accuracy of results and even avoid incorrect predictions of spectra and the EE shape. Our results indicate that (a) simple augmentation of atom-centered diffuse functions is beneficial for the vertical detachment energy convergence, but it leads to very poor descriptions for the singly occupied molecular orbital (SOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) distributions of the water cluster anions featuring a surface-bound excess electron and thus a significant ultraviolet spectrum redshift; (b) the ghost-atom-based floating diffuse functions can not only contribute to accurate electronic calculations of the ground state but also avoid poor and even incorrect descriptions of the SOMO and the LUMO induced by excessive augmentation of atom-centered diffuse functions; (c) the floating functions can be realized by ghost atoms and their positions could be determined through an optimization routine along the dipole moment vector direction. In addition, both the s- and p-type floating functions are necessary to supplement in the basis set which are responsible for the ground (s-type character) and excited (p-type character) states of the surface-bound excess electron, respectively. The exponents of the diffuse functions should also be determined to make the diffuse functions cover the main region of the excess electron distribution. Note that excessive augmentation of such diffuse functions is redundant and even can lead to unreasonable LUMO characteristics.

Renormalized coupled cluster approaches in the cluster-in-molecule framework: predicting vertical electron binding energies of the anionic water clusters (H2O)(n)(-).

Anionic water clusters are generally considered to be extremely challenging to model using fragmentation approaches due to the diffuse nature of the excess electron distribution. The local correlation coupled cluster (CC) framework cluster-in-molecule (CIM) approach combined with the completely renormalized CR-CC(2,3) method [abbreviated CIM/CR-CC(2,3)] is shown to be a viable alternative for computing the vertical electron binding energies (VEBE). CIM/CR-CC(2,3) with the threshold parameter ζ set to 0.001, as a trade-off between accuracy and computational cost, demonstrates the reliability of predicting the VEBE, with an average percentage error of ∼15% compared to the full ab initio calculation at the same level of theory. The errors are predominantly from the electron correlation energy. The CIM/CR-CC(2,3) approach provides the ease of a black-box type calculation with few threshold parameters to manipulate. The cluster sizes that can be studied by high-level ab initio methods are significantly increased in comparison with full CC calculations. Therefore, the VEBE computed by the CIM/CR-CC(2,3) method can be used as benchmarks for testing model potential approaches in small-to-intermediate-sized water clusters.

Hydration dynamics in water clusters via quantum molecular dynamics simulations

We have investigated the hydration dynamics in size selected water clusters with n = 66, 104, 200, 500, and 1000 water molecules using molecular dynamics simulations. To study the most fundamental aspects of relaxation phenomena in clusters, we choose one of the simplest, still realistic, quantum mechanically treated test solute, an excess electron. The project focuses on the time evolution of the clusters following two processes, electron attachment to neutral equilibrated water clusters and electron detachment from an equilibrated water cluster anion. The relaxation dynamics is significantly different in the two processes, most notably restoring the equilibrium final state is less effective after electron attachment. Nevertheless, in both scenarios only minor cluster size dependence is observed. Significantly different relaxation patterns characterize electron detachment for interior and surface state clusters, interior state clusters relaxing significantly faster. This observation may indicate a potential way to distinguish surface state and interior state water cluster anion isomers experimentally. A comparison of equilibrium and non-equilibrium trajectories suggests that linear response theory breaks down for electron attachment at 200 K, but the results converge to reasonable agreement at higher temperatures. Relaxation following electron detachment clearly belongs to the linear regime. Cluster relaxation was also investigated using two different computational models, one preferring cavity type interior states for the excess electron in bulk water, while the other simulating non-cavity structure. While the cavity model predicts appearance of several different hydrated electron isomers in agreement with experiment, the non-cavity model locates only cluster anions with interior excess electron distribution. The present simulations show that surface isomers computed with the cavity predicting potential show similar dynamical behavior to the interior clusters of the non-cavity type model. Relaxation associated with cavity collapse presents, however, unique dynamical signatures.

Excess Electrons Bound to Molecular Systems with a Vanishing Dipole but Large Molecular Quadrupole

Electron attachment properties of covalent molecules and ion clusters with vanishing dipole moments but large quadrupoles are studied with coupled cluster ab initio methods. Selection of the molecules studied is driven by two goals, finding a paradigm quadrupole-bound anion and investigating whether there is a correlation between the magnitude of the molecular quadrupole and the vertical attachment energy. Out of all examined species, only the ion clusters and four of the covalent molecules are found to support bound anions. The shapes and spatial extents of the associated excess electron distributions are qualitatively and quantitatively characterized, respectively. Two of the four covalent systems are especially promising as paradigm systems because of advantageous trade-offs regarding the number of isomers and conformers as well as synthetic closeness to commercial sources. No correlation was found between the vertical attachment energy and molecular quadrupole in an analysis that included the newly identified bound anions, those molecules, which were found not to support bound anions, and succinonitrile, which had been studied before. Moreover, there is clearly no such thing as a "critical quadrupole moment". There are, however, very strong electron correlation effects involved in the binding of the excess electrons, and similar to succinonitrile, for five out of six anions identified here, the molecular quadrupole of the neutral itself is too weak to bind an excess electron, and electron correlation in the form of dynamic polarization is required to do so.

Characterizing the excess electron of Li(NH3)4

Small lithium ammonia clusters are model systems for the dissociation of metals into solvated cations and electrons in ammonia. Metal-ammonia solutions display a complex behavior with increasing metal concentration including a phase change from a paramagnetic to a metallic diamagnetic phase, and small clusters should be useful models in the low concentration regime, where one may expect the ammoniated electron to show a behavior similar to that of the hydrated electron. Yet, even in the low concentration regime the nature of the ammoniated electron is still controversial with cavity models supported by optical and density measurements whereas localized radical models have been invoked to explain magnetic measurements. Small clusters can shed light on these open questions, and in particular the Li-NH(3) tetramer represents the smallest cluster with a complete solvation shell for the Li(+) cation. In view of the controversies about the character of the excess electron, the first question investigated is whether different theoretical characterizations of the "excess electron" lead to different conclusions about it. Only small differences are found between orbital-based and spin density-based and between self-consistent-field and coupled-cluster-based methods. Natural orbitals from equation-of-motion coupled-cluster calculations are then used to analyze the excess electron's distribution of Li(NH(3))(4) with particular emphasis on the portion of the excess electron's density that is closely associated with the N atoms. Three different comparisons show that only about 6% of the excess electron's density are closely associated with the atoms, with about 1% being closely associated with any N atom, and that the electron is best characterized as a Rydberg-like electron of the whole cluster. Finally, it is shown that in spite of the small amount of density close to the N atoms, the spin-density at the N nuclei is substantial, and that the magnetic observations can plausibly be explained within the cavity model.

Ab initio studies of Nb doping effect on the formation of oxygen vacancy in rutile TiO 2

In this paper, the effect of Nb doping on the formation of O vacancies in rutile TiO 2 is studied by the use of ab initio density-functional calculations. The formation energies are calculated at different doping concentrations ( C Nb ) and the corresponding electronic structures are analyzed. It is shown that the formation energy is mainly determined by the structural relaxation. As C Nb increases, the formation energy first increases and then decreases with the maximum in vicinity of C Nb =11.1 at%. The investigation of electronic structures shows that the distribution of excess electrons, which is affected by the doping concentration and the types of oxygen vacancy, determines the relaxation and formation energy of oxygen vacancy. Our calculated results indicate that the formation of oxygen vacancy in rutile TiO 2 can be most effectively suppressed by Nb doping in a large range of Nb doping concentration. This may be one of the reasons why the proper amount of Nb doping can improve the oxidation resistance of γ - TiAl .

Density-Functional Calculations of the Structure of Near-Surface Oxygen Vacancies and Electron Localization onCeO2(111)

One of the most topical issues surrounding oxygen vacancies on CeO2(111) is the relative stability of surface and subsurface defects. Using density-functional theory (DFT) with the HSE06 (Heyd-Scuseria-Ernzerhof) hybrid functional as well as the DFT+U approach (where U is a Hubbard-like term describing the on-site Coulomb interactions), we find subsurface vacancies with (2x2) periodicity to be energetically more favorable by 0.45 (HSE06), 0.47 [PBE+U (Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof functional)], and 0.22 eV [LDA+U (local density approximation)]. The excess electrons localize not on Ce ions which are the nearest neighbor to the defect as priorly suggested, but instead on those that are next-nearest neighbors. The excess-electron distribution and the preference for subsurface vacancies are explained in terms of defect-induced lattice relaxation effects.

Parameters For Excess Electron Transfer in DNA. Estimation Using Unoccupied Kohn−Sham Orbitals and TD DFT

We show that the energetics and electronic couplings for excess electron transfer (EET) can be accurately estimated by using unoccupied Kohn-Sham orbitals (UKSO) calculated for neutral pi stacks. To assess the performance of different DFT functionals, we use MS-PT2 results for seven pi stacks of nucleobases as reference data. The DFT calculations are carried out by using the local spin density approximation SVWN, two generalized gradient approximation functionals BP86 and BLYP, and two hybrid functionals B3LYP and BH&HLYP. Best estimations within the UKSO approach are obtained by the B3LYP and SVWN methods. TD DFT calculations provide less accurate values of the EET parameters as compared with the UKSO data. Also, the excess charge distribution in the radical anions is well described by the LUMOs of neutral systems. In contrast, spin-unrestricted DFT calculations of radical anions considerably overestimate delocalization of the excess electron. The excellent results obtained for the ground and excited states of the radical anions (excitation energy, transition dipole moment, electronic coupling, and excess electron distribution) by using UKSO of neutral dimers suggest an efficient strategy to calculate the EET parameters for DNA pi stacks.

Structure and singly occupied molecular orbital analysis of anionic tautomers of guanine

Recently, we reported the discovery of adiabatically bound anions of guanine that might be involved in the processes of DNA damage by low-energy electrons and in charge transfer through DNA. These anions correspond to some tautomers that have been ignored thus far. They were identified using a hybrid quantum mechanical-combinatorial approach in which an energy-based screening was performed on the library of 499 tautomers with their relative energies calculated with quantum chemistry methods. In the current study, we analyze the adiabatically bound anions of guanine in two aspects: (1) the geometries and excess electron distributions are analyzed and compared with anions of the most stable neutrals to identify the sources of stability; (2) the chemical space of guanine tautomers is explored to verify if these new tautomers are contained in a particular subspace of the tautomeric space. The first task involves the development of novel approaches-the quantum chemical data like electron density, orbital, and information on its bonding/antibonding character are coded into holograms and analyzed using chemoinformatics techniques. The second task is completed using substructure analysis and clustering techniques performed on molecules represented by 2D fingerprints. The major conclusion is that the high stability of adiabatically bound anions originates from the bonding character of the pi orbital occupied by the excess electron. This compensates for the antibonding character that usually causes significant buckling of the ring. Also, the excess electron is more homogenously distributed over both rings than in the case of anions of the most stable neutral species. In terms of 2D substructure, the most stable anionic tautomers generally have additional hydrogen atoms at C8 and/or C2 and they do not have hydrogen atoms attached to C4, C5, and C6. They also form an "island of stability" in the tautomeric space of guanine.

Frequency spectrum of Cherenkov radiation and radioastronomical method for measuring the flux of ultrahigh-energy cosmic particles

The frequency spectrum of a radio pulse generated by a cascade shower in the Moon’s regolith has been calculated with the inclusion of the transverse sizes of the shower and the inhomogeneous distribution of excess electrons over the disc radius. The character of the spectrum differs significantly from the previous results that were obtained by E. Zas et al., Phys. Rev. D 45, 362 (1992), and J. Alvarez-Munis et al., astro-ph/0003315, and were more recently used by T. H. Hankins et al., Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 283, 1027 (1996); P. W. Gorham et al., astro-ph/9906504; and P. W. Gorham et al., astro-ph/0310232. The maximum-intensity region lies in a range of 500–600 MHz. In a frequency range of 1.5–2 GHz, the radiation intensity decreases by several orders of magnitude. This seems to be one of the causes of the absence of events in experimental works of T. H. Hankins et al., Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 283, 1027 (1996); P. W. Gorham et al., astro-ph/9906504; and P. W. Gorham et al., astro-ph/0310232, which closed Z-burst models.

Electron distribution and intracluster reaction in [Nan(CS2)2]- negative ion clusters

We have studied excess electron distributions of binary cluster negative ions consisting of sodium atoms and carbon disulfied molecules, Nan(CS2)2- (n= 1 and 2) by using photoelectron spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations based on the density functional theory (DFT). The photoelectron spectra indicate the existence of at least two isomers for both n=1 and 2 anions. From the DFT calculations, mainly two types of isomers are found to coexist in the Na(CS2)2-; one has a van der Waals (vdW) type CS2 dimer core and another has a covalently bonded C2S4 core, both of which were known for CS2 molecular cluster anions. In the latter isomers, the C2S4 portion possesses almost two electrons, which is caused by the valence electron transfer from the Na atom. Also for n=2, we found the isomers of vdW and covalently bonded types. In the isomers with covalently bonded core, the C2S4 portion has more than two electrons, an excess electron and double valence-electron transfer from both of the sodium atoms.

Theoretical Study of Main-Group Metal−Borazine Sandwich Complexes

Using density functional theory within the generalized gradient approximation, we have theoretically studied the formation of neutral metal-aromatic complexes R1-M and R1-M-R2, where M is either neutral lithium, calcium, or gallium and R1 or R2 is benzene or borazine. We first find that calcium atom is an effective mediator for cooperative formation of a sandwich complex with borazine, while others are not. When benzene and borazine are mixed in the presence of calcium, a 1:2:1 mixture of benzene-calcium-benzene, borazine-calcium-benzene, and borazine-calcium-borazine is expected. An "A"-shaped structure is predicted for homo- and heterocomplexes of borazine with partial B-B and B-C bonds, while two rings are planar in the case of homocomplexes of benzene. Our analysis of the electron density distributions in HOMO-1 to LUMO in terms of orbital symmetry in conjunction with analysis of l,m-projected electronic local density of states shows that this correlates with the charge transfer and the interaction of pi states of the rings mediated by empty d-states of Ca, which is ultimately related to the polarity of the B-N bond. We find that there is a large accumulation of electron density on particular atoms upon complex formation, predicting characteristic behavior in electron-transfer reaction and nucleophilic reaction different from those for pure benzene or borazine molecule. The hetero-sandwich complex is of particular interest due to its asymmetrical distribution of excess electrons.

Electron Distribution in the Two-Electron Reduced Isopolytungstate [W10O32]6-

A simple model is proposed to calculate the charge distribution in the two-electron-reduced isopolytungstate [W10O32].6- It is shown that the experimentally observed asymmetric excess electron distribution is due to competition of the electronic delocalization between equatorial metal sites and Coulomb repulsion.