Structural, energetic, and electronic properties of hydrogenated aluminum arsenide clusters

摘要

The chemisorptions of hydrogen on aluminum arsenide clusters are studied with density functional theory (DFT). The on-top site is identified to be the most favorable chemisorptions site for hydrogen. And the Al-top site is the preferred one in the most cases for one hydrogen adsorption in (AlAs) _n (n = 2, 5, 6, 8–15) clusters. Top on the neighboring Al and As atoms ground-state structures are found for two hydrogen adsorption on (AlAs) _n except for (AlAs)₂ cluster. The Al–As bond lengths decrease generally as the size of the cluster increases. And there is a slight increase in the mean Al–As bond lengths after H adsorption on the lowest-energy sites of the most AlAs clusters. In general, the binding energy of H and 2H are both found to decrease with an increase in the cluster size. And the result shows that large binding energies (BE) of a single hydrogen atom on small AlAs clusters and large highest occupied and lowest unoccupied molecular-orbital gaps for (AlAs)H and (AlAs)₃H make these species behaving like magic clusters. Calculations on two hydrogen atoms on (AlAs) _n clusters show large BE for (AlAs) _n H₂ with an odd number of n. The stability of these complexes is further studied from the fragmentation energies. (AlAs)₇H₂ and (AlAs)₉H₂ clusters are again suggested to be the stable clusters. On the other hand both the fragmentation energy and the binding energy for (AlAs)₁₃H are close to the lowest values.