DFT Studies on the Stoichiometric Thorium Oxide Clusters(ThO_2)_n(n = 1～5): Electronic and Structural Properties

Density functional theory(DFT) calculations are performed to investigate the electronic and structural properties of the stoichiometric thorium oxide clusters(ThO_2)_n-/0(n = 1～5). Generalized Koopmans' theorem is applied to predict the vertical detachment energies(VDEs)which are used to simulate the anionic photoelectron spectra(PES). Molecular orbital analyses are performed as well to analyze the chemical bonding in these thorium oxide clusters. The results show that the ground states of(ThO_2)_n-/0(n = 1～5) clusters prefer the low-spin structures. With increasing of the cluster size(n), the structure parameters of(ThO_2)_n-/0(n = 1～5) gradually evolve toward bulk thorium oxide species. It shows that both the coordination number and the average bond length increase gradually in(ThO_2)_n-/0(n = 1～5) to approach that of ThO2 bulk. What's more, the vibration frequencies of Th=O double bonds are found to be decreasing along with the increased cluster size.