Sai Duan

Epitaxial Growth of Heterogeneous Metal Nanocrystals: From Gold Nano-octahedra to Palladium and Silver Nanocubes

With octahedral Au nanocrystals as seeds, highly monodisperse Au@Pd and Au@Ag core-shell nanocubes were synthesized by a two-step seed-mediated method in aqueous solution. Accordingly, we have preliminarily proposed a general rule that the atomic radius, bond dissociation energy, and electronegativity of the core and shell metals play key roles in determining the conformal epitaxial layered growth mode.

The Realistic Domain Structure of As-Synthesized Graphene Oxide from Ultrafast Spectroscopy

Graphene oxide (GO) is an attractive alternative for large-scale production of graphene, but its general structure is still under debate due to its complicated nonstoichiometric nature. Here we perform a set of femtosecond pump-probe experiments on as-synthesized GO to extrapolate structural information in situ. Remarkably, it is observed that, in these highly oxidized GO samples, the ultrafast graphene-like dynamics intrinsic to pristine graphene is completely dominant over a wide energy region and can be modified by the localized impurity states and the electron-phonon coupling under certain conditions. These observations, combined with the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis and control experiments, lead to an important conclusion that GO consists of two types of domain, namely the carbon-rich graphene-like domain and the oxygen-rich domain. This study creates a new understanding of the realistic domain structure and properties of as-synthesized GO, offering useful guidance for future applications based on chemically modified/functionalized graphenes.

Theoretical Modeling of Plasmon-Enhanced Raman Images of a Single Molecule with Subnanometer Resolution

Sai Duan, 2 Guangjun Tian, Yongfei Ji, Jiushu Shao, and Yi Luo 2, ∗ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Department of Chemical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026 Anhui, P. R. China. Department of Theoretical Chemistry and Biology, School of Biotechnology, Royal Institute of Technology, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. Key Laboratory of Theoretical Computational Photochemistry, Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P. R. China. (Dated: June 19, 2014)Under local plasmonic excitation, Raman images of single molecules can now surprisingly reach subnanometer resolution. However, its physical origin has not been fully understood. Here we report a quantum-mechanical description of the interaction between a molecule and a highly confined plasmonic field. We show that when the spatial distribution of the plasmonic field is comparable to the size of the molecule, the optical transition matrix of the molecule becomes dependent on the position and distribution of the plasmonic field, resulting in a spatially resolved high-resolution Raman image of the molecule. The resonant Raman image reflects the electronic transition density of the molecule. In combination with first-principles calculations, the simulated Raman image of a porphyrin derivative adsorbed on a silver surface nicely reproduces its experimental counterpart. The present theory provides the basic framework for describing linear and nonlinear responses of molecules under highly confined plasmonic fields.

A density functional theory approach to mushroom-like platinum clusters on palladium-shell over Au core nanoparticles for high electrocatalytic activity.

Recently, it was found that Pt clusters deposited on Pd shell over Au core nanoparticles (Au@Pd@Pt NPs) exhibit unusually high electrocatalytic activity for the electro-oxidation of formic acid (P. P. Fang, S. Duan, et al., Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 531-539). In an attempt to offer an explanation, we used here carbon monoxide (CO) as probed molecules, and applied density functional theory (DFT) to simulate the surface Raman spectra of CO at this core-shell-cluster NPs with a two monolayer thickness of Pd shell and various Pt cluster coverage. Our DFT results show that the calculated Pt coverage dependent spectra fit the experimental ones well only if the Pt clusters adopt a mushroom-like structure, while currently the island-like structure is the widely accepted model, which follows the Volmer-Weber growth mode. This result infers that there should be a new growth mode, i.e., the mushroom growth mode as proposed in the present work, for Au@Pd@Pt NPs. We suggest that such a mushroom-like structure may offer novel active sites, which accounts for the observed high electrocatalytic activity of Au@Pd@Pt NPs.

Visualization of Vibrational Modes in Real Space by Tip‐Enhanced Non‐Resonant Raman Spectroscopy

We present a general theory to model the spatially resolved non-resonant Raman images of molecules. It is predicted that the vibrational motions of different Raman modes can be fully visualized in real space by tip-enhanced non-resonant Raman scattering. As an example, the non-resonant Raman images of water clusters were simulated by combining the new theory and first-principles calculations. Each individual normal mode gives rise its own distinct Raman image, which resembles the expected vibrational motions of the atoms very well. The characteristics of intermolecular vibrations in supermolecules could also be identified. The effects of the spatial distribution of the plasmon as well as nonlinear scattering processes were also addressed. Our study not only suggests a feasible approach to spatially visualize vibrational modes, but also provides new insights in the field of nonlinear plasmonic spectroscopy.

Density functional theory study on the adsorption and decomposition of the formic acid catalyzed by highly active mushroom-like Au@Pd@Pt tri-metallic nanoparticles

Local structures and adsorption energies of a formic acid molecule and its decomposed intermediates (H, O, OH, CO, HCOO, and COOH) on highly electrocatalytically active mushroom-like Au-core@Pd-shell@Pt-cluster nanoparticles with two atomic layers of the Pd shell and stoichiometric Pt coverage of around half-monolayer (Au@2 ML Pd@0.5 ML Pt) have been investigated by first principles calculations. The adsorption sites at the center (far away from the Pt cluster) and the edge (close to the Pt cluster) are considered and compared. Significant repulsive interaction between the edge sites and CO is observed. The calculated potential energy surfaces demonstrate that, with respect to the center sites, the CO2 pathway is considerably promoted in the edge area. Our results reveal that the unique edge structure of the Pt cluster is responsible for the experimentally observed high electrocatalytic activity of the Au@Pd@Pt nanoparticles toward formic acid oxidation. Such microscopic understanding should be useful for the design of new electrochemical catalysts.

Molecular polarization bridging physical and chemical enhancements in surface enhanced Raman scattering.

We present a practical method which demonstrates how the physical and chemical enhancements in SERS for a molecule adsorbed on metal junctions are conceptually coupled through the polarization of the molecule and its surroundings. Calculations with the state-of-the-art density functional reveal that the coupling factor considered in the present work can be as large as 10(6), such that it is indeed important for certain vibrational modes.

Significant Contributions of the Albrecht's A Term to Nonresonant Raman Scattering Processes.

The Raman intensity can be well described by the famous Albrechts Raman theory that consists of A and B terms. It is well-known that the contribution from Albrechts A term can be neglected without any loss of accuracy for far-off resonant Raman scattering processes. However, as demonstrated in this study, we have found that this widely accepted long-standing assumption fails drastically for totally symmetric vibration modes of molecules in general off-resonant Raman scattering. Perturbed first-principles calculations for water molecule show that strong constructive interference between the A and B terms occurs for the Raman intensity of the symmetric O-H stretching mode, which can account for ∼40% of the total intensity. Meanwhile, a minor destructive interference is found for the angle bending mode. The state-to-state mapping between Albrechts theory and perturbation theory allows us to verify the accuracy of the widely employed perturbation method for the dynamic/resonant Raman intensities. The model calculations rationalized from water molecule with the bending mode show that the perturbation method is a good approximation only when the absolute energy difference between the first excited state and the incident light is more than five times greater than the vibrational energy in the ground state.

Optical Excitation in Donor–Pt–Acceptor Complexes: Role of the Structure

The optical properties of the Pt complexes in the form of donor-metal-acceptor (D-M-A) were studied at the first-principles level. Calculated results show that for the frontier molecular orbitals (MOs) of a D-M-A structure the energies of unoccupied frontier MO can be mainly determined by the interaction between M and A, whereas the M-A and M-D interactions both determine the energies of occupied frontier MO. By developing a straightforward transition dipole decomposition method, we found that not only the local excitations in D but also those in A can significantly contribute to the charge-transfer (CT) excitation. Furthermore, the calculations also demonstrate that by tuning the dihedral angle between D and A the transition probability can be precisely controlled so as to broaden the spectrum region of photoabsorption. For the D-M-A molecule with a delocalized π system in A, the CT excitation barely affects the electronic structures of metal, suggesting that the oxidation state of the metal can be kept during the excitation. These understandings for the optical properties of the D-M-A molecule would be useful for the design of dye-sensitized solar cells, photocatalysis, and luminescence systems.

Theoretical modeling of surface and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopies

Raman spectroscopy is a powerful technique in molecular science because of the ability of providing vibrational ‘finger‐print’. The developments of the surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and tip‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) have significantly improved the detection sensitivity and efficiency. However, they also introduce complications for the spectral assignments, for which advanced theoretical modeling has played an important role. Here we summarize some of our recent progresses for SERS and TERS, which generally combine both solid‐state physics and quantum chemistry methods with two different schemes, namely the cluster model and the periodic boundary condition (PBC) model. In the cluster model, direct Raman spectra calculations are performed for the cluster taken from the accurate PBC structure. For PBC model, we have developed a quasi‐analytical approach that enables us to calculate the Raman spectra of entire system. Under the TERS condition, the non‐uniformity of plasmonic field in real space can drastically alter the interaction between the molecule and the light. By taking into account the local distributions of the plasmonic field, a new interaction Hamiltonian is constructed and applied to model the super‐high‐resolution Raman images of a single molecule. It shows that the resonant Raman images reflect the transition density between ground and excited states, which are generally vibrational insensitive. The nonresonant Raman images, on the other hand, allow to visualize the atomic movement of individual vibrational modes in real space. The inclusion of non‐uniformity of plasmonic field provides ample opportunities to discover new physics and new applications in the future. WIREs Comput Mol Sci 2017, 7:e1293. doi: 10.1002/wcms.1293