Colloidal nanoparticles are being intensely pursued in current nanoscience research. Nanochemists are often frustrated by the well-known fact that no two nanoparticles are the same, which precludes the deep understanding of many fundamental properties of colloidal nanoparticles in which the total structures (core plus surface) must be known. Therefore, controlling nanoparticles with atomic precision and solving their total structures have long been major dreams for nanochemists. Recently, these goals are partially fulfilled in the case of gold nanoparticles, at least in the ultrasmall size regime (1–3 nm in diameter, often called nanoclusters). This review summarizes the major progress in the field, including the principles that permit atomically precise synthesis, new types of atomic structures, and unique physical and chemical properties of atomically precise nanoparticles, as well as exciting opportunities for nanochemists to understand very fundamental science of colloidal nanoparticles (such as the s...

Atomically Precise Colloidal Metal Nanoclusters and Nanoparticles: Fundamentals and Opportunities

: The unpolarized absorption and circular dichroism spectra of the fundamental vibrational transitions of the chiral molecule, 4-methyl-2-oxetanone, are calculated ab initio. Harmonic force fields are obtained using Density Functional Theory (DFT), MP2, and SCF methodologies and a 5S4P2D/3S2P (TZ2P) basis set. DFT calculations use the Local Spin Density Approximation (LSDA), BLYP, and Becke3LYP (B3LYP) density functionals. Mid-IR spectra predicted using LSDA, BLYP, and B3LYP force fields are of significantly different quality, the B3LYP force field yielding spectra in clearly superior, and overall excellent, agreement with experiment. The MP2 force field yields spectra in slightly worse agreement with experiment than the B3LYP force field. The SCF force field yields spectra in poor agreement with experiment.The basis set dependence of B3LYP force fields is also explored: the 6-31G* and TZ2P basis sets give very similar results while the 3-21G basis set yields spectra in substantially worse agreements with experiment. jg

Ab initio calculation of vibrational absorption and circular dichroism spectra using density functional force fields

In previous publications, it was shown that an efficient local coupled cluster method with single- and double excitations can be based on the concept of pair natural orbitals (PNOs) [F. Neese, A. Hansen, and D. G. Liakos, J. Chem. Phys. 131, 064103 (2009)]. The resulting local pair natural orbital-coupled-cluster single double (LPNO-CCSD) method has since been proven to be highly reliable and efficient. For large molecules, the number of amplitudes to be determined is reduced by a factor of 10(5)-10(6) relative to a canonical CCSD calculation on the same system with the same basis set. In the original method, the PNOs were expanded in the set of canonical virtual orbitals and single excitations were not truncated. This led to a number of fifth order scaling steps that eventually rendered the method computationally expensive for large molecules (e.g., >100 atoms). In the present work, these limitations are overcome by a complete redesign of the LPNO-CCSD method. The new method is based on the combination of the concepts of PNOs and projected atomic orbitals (PAOs). Thus, each PNO is expanded in a set of PAOs that in turn belong to a given electron pair specific domain. In this way, it is possible to fully exploit locality while maintaining the extremely high compactness of the original LPNO-CCSD wavefunction. No terms are dropped from the CCSD equations and domains are chosen conservatively. The correlation energy loss due to the domains remains below 8800 basis functions and >450 atoms. In all larger test calculations done so far, the LPNO-CCSD step took less time than the preceding Hartree-Fock calculation, provided no approximations have been introduced in the latter. Thus, based on the present development reliable CCSD calculations on large molecules with unprecedented efficiency and accuracy are realized.

An efficient and near linear scaling pair natural orbital based local coupled cluster method

Fragmentation Methods: A Route to Accurate Calculations on Large Systems Mark S. Gordon,* Dmitri G. Fedorov, Spencer R. Pruitt, and Lyudmila V. Slipchenko Department of Chemistry and Ames Laboratory, Iowa State University, Ames Iowa 50011, United States Nanosystem Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8568, Japan Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States

Fragmentation methods: a route to accurate calculations on large systems.

A discussion of many of the recently implemented features of GAMESS (General Atomic and Molecular Electronic Structure System) and LibCChem (the C++ CPU/GPU library associated with GAMESS) is presented. These features include fragmentation methods such as the fragment molecular orbital, effective fragment potential and effective fragment molecular orbital methods, hybrid MPI/OpenMP approaches to Hartree-Fock, and resolution of the identity second order perturbation theory. Many new coupled cluster theory methods have been implemented in GAMESS, as have multiple levels of density functional/tight binding theory. The role of accelerators, especially graphical processing units, is discussed in the context of the new features of LibCChem, as it is the associated problem of power consumption as the power of computers increases dramatically. The process by which a complex program suite such as GAMESS is maintained and developed is considered. Future developments are briefly summarized.

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Recent developments in the general atomic and molecular electronic structure system.

SALMON: Scalable Ab-initio Light-Matter simulator for Optics and Nanoscience

Although the concept of aromaticity has long played an important role in carbon chemistry, it has been unclear how applicable the stabilizing framework is to the heaviest elements. Here we report the synthesis of dilithiotetraphenylplumbole by reduction of hexaphenylplumbole. X-ray crystallography revealed a planar structure with no alternation of carbon-carbon bond lengths in the five-membered ring core. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectra and relativistic theoretical calculations show considerable aromatic character in the molecule, thus extending aromaticity to carbon's heaviest congener.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/328/5976/339.full.pdf

Dilithioplumbole: A Lead-Bearing Aromatic Cyclopentadienyl Analog

The Aromaticity of the Stannole Dianion

The three-body energy expansion in the fragment molecular orbital method (FMO) was applied to the 2nd order Moller–Plesset theory (MP2). The accuracy of both the two and three-body expansions was determined for water clusters, alanine n-mers (α-helices and β-strands) and one synthetic protein, using the 6-31G* and 6-311G* basis sets. At the best level of theory (three-body, two molecules/residues per fragment), the absolute errors in energy relative to ab initio MP2 were at most 1.2 and 5.0 mhartree, for the 6-31G* and 6-311G* basis sets, respectively. The relative accuracy was at worst 99.996% and 99.96%, for 6-31G* and 6-311G*, respectively. A three-body approximation was introduced and the optimum threshold value was determined. The protein calculation (6-31G*) at the production level (FMO2/2) took 3 h on 36 3.2-GHz Pentium 4 nodes and had the absolute error in the MP2 correlation energy of only 2 kcal/mol. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2007

Accuracy of the three-body fragment molecular orbital method applied to Møller-Plesset perturbation theory.

A new parallel algorithm has been developed for second-order Moller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) energy calculations. Its main projected applications are for large molecules, for instance, for the calculation of dispersion interaction. Tests on a moderate number of processors (2-16) show that the program has high CPU and parallel efficiency. Timings are presented for two relatively large molecules, taxol (C(47)H(51)NO(14)) and luciferin (C(11)H(8)N(2)O(3)S(2)), the former with the 6-31G* and 6-311G** basis sets (1,032 and 1,484 basis functions, 164 correlated orbitals), and the latter with the aug-cc-pVDZ and aug-cc-pVTZ basis sets (530 and 1,198 basis functions, 46 correlated orbitals). An MP2 energy calculation on C(130)H(10) (1,970 basis functions, 265 correlated orbitals) completed in less than 2 h on 128 processors.

Kazuya Ishimura

Papers

SALMON: Scalable Ab-initio Light-Matter simulator for Optics and Nanoscience

Dilithioplumbole: A Lead-Bearing Aromatic Cyclopentadienyl Analog

The Aromaticity of the Stannole Dianion

Accuracy of the three-body fragment molecular orbital method applied to Møller-Plesset perturbation theory.

A new parallel algorithm of MP2 energy calculations.