Vol 470, No 1 (2016)

It has been demonstrated that hydrogen adsorption has an effect on the electronic structure of gold nanoparticles. The physicochemical properties of separate gold nanoparticles have been studied under an ultrahigh vacuum scanning tunneling microscope. The structure and electronic structure of gold–hydrogen clusters were modeled by the quantum-chemical density functional theory method. Hydrogen adsorption onto gold nanoparticles 4–5 nm is size at room temperature was experimentally revealed, and the lower limit of 1.7 eV for the Au–H bond energy was determined. The interaction of hydrogen with gold leads to a considerable rearrangement of the electronic subsystem of nanoparticles. The experimentally observed effects were supported by quantum-chemical calculations. The rearrangement mechanism is related to strong correlations in the electronic subsystem.

Properties of the frontier orbitals of a d⁰-organometallic complex with promising photoluminescent and photosensor characteristics have been systematically studied by modern quantum-chemical methods. It has been demonstrated that the lowest electronically excited states are related to charge transfer from high-lying ligand-centered molecular orbitals to the predominantly metal-centered lowest unoccupied molecular orbital. Such an approach makes it possible to predict complexes with promising spectral-luminescent properties, including catalytic precursors of early transition metals.