Exploration of the Structural, Electronic and Tunable Magnetic Properties of Cu₄M (M = Sc-Ni) Clusters

The structural, electronic and magnetic properties of Cu₄M (M = Sc-Ni) clusters have been studied by using density functional theory, together with an unbiased CALYPSO structure searching method. Geometry optimizations indicate that M atoms in the ground state Cu₄M clusters favor the most highly coordinated position. The geometry of Cu₄M clusters is similar to that of the Cu₅ cluster. The infrared spectra, Raman spectra and photoelectron spectra are predicted and can be used to identify the ground state in the future. The relative stability and chemical activity are investigated by means of the averaged binding energy, dissociation energy and energy level gap. It is found that the dopant atoms except for Cr and Mn can enhance the stability of the host cluster. The chemical activity of all Cu₄M clusters is lower than that of Cu₅ cluster whose energy level gap is in agreement with available experimental finding. The magnetism calculations show that the total magnetic moment of Cu₄M cluster mainly come from M atom and vary from 1 to 5 μ_B by substituting a Cu atom in Cu₅ cluster with different transition-metal atoms.