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Chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS), which was demonstrated in several molecular and material systems, has drawn much interest recently. The phenomenon, described in electron transport by the difference in the transport rate of electrons of opposite spins through a chiral system, is however not fully understood. Herein, we employed density functional theory in conjunction with spin-orbit coupling to evaluate the percent spin-polarization in a device setup with finite electrodes at zero bias, using an electron transport program developed in-house. To study the interface effects and the level of theory considered, we investigated a helical oligopeptide chain, an intrinsically chiral gold cluster, and a helicene model system that was previously studied (Zöllner et al. J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2020, 16, 7357-7371). We find that the magnitude of the spin-polarization depends on the chiral system-electrode interface that is modeled by varying the interface boundary between the system's regions, on the method of calculating spin-orbit coupling, and on the exchange-correlation functional, e.g., the amount of exact exchange in the hybrid functionals. In addition, to assess the effects of bias, we employ the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism in the Quantum Atomistix Toolkit program, showing that the spin-flip terms could be important in calculating the CISS effect. Although understanding CISS in comparison to experiment is still not resolved, our study provides intrinsic responses from first-principles calculations.

Small semiconductor nanoclusters are important for understanding the initial formation and growth of quantum dots and also for application, for example in the tunability provided by size. However, electronic structures and effects of capping ligands have not been systematically characterized. Thus, ground and excited state calculations using coupled-cluster methods were carried out to provide benchmarks for evaluating the applicability of density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT (TDDFT) with different functionals for the ground and excited states, respectively. Our computed data suggests that the popular B3LYP functional does not deliver optimal results for the ground and excited state. While the PBE0 functional was found to provide a good description for both the ground and excited states for small bare (ZnS)n and bare and ligated (CdSe)n clusters, the results for the hydrated (ZnS)n clusters were found to deteriorate significantly. However, the errors appear to decrease with increasing cluster size. Excitation energies obtained with the long-range hybrid CAM-B3LYP and CA-B3LYP were found to provide more consistent results for both anhydrous and hydrated (ZnS)n clusters. However, their performance in spectral predictions for larger clusters requires further study. Using PBE0, electronic structures of the ground and excited states for (ZnS)n and (CdSe)n up to n = 37 using DFT and TDDFT, respectively, were re-examined. With the exception of the cage-core (ZnS)13, (CdSe)13, and (CdSe)14, small (ZnS)n and (CdSe)n are predicted to be spheroids and tubular structures (6, 8-12, 15-19) with squares and hexagons, similar to the structures of carbon single-wall nanotubes. Wurtzite (n = 23-27, 36, 37) and cage-core (n = 29-35) structures are energetically more favorable for larger clusters. We find that water and amines increase the intensities and blue shift the excitations of bare clusters. One photon absorption spectra predicted by TDDFT with the PCM solvation model for (CdSe-methylamine)13 and the larger ligated (CdSe)33 are consistent with the experimental spectra.

Possible mechanisms for the reaction of aluminum anion clusters with water have been studied theoretically using density functional theory for four different size clusters. Our results confirm the previously found (Reber et al. J. Phys. Chem. A2010, 114, 6071) importance of Lewis-acid and Lewis-base sites on the cluster in the size specificity of the reactivity. However, alternative viable mechanisms have been found using both Langmuir-Hinshelwood and Eley-Rideal kinetics. Grotthuss-like mechanisms appear to be the most energetically favorable. We show that while the superatom theory successfully predicts reactivity of smaller clusters, it is less useful for the larger clusters.

The one- (OPA) and two-photon (TPA) absorption spectra have been calculated for a gold dimer, for a monothiolated gold dimer anion, for a thiolated gold cluster [Au25(SH)18](-1), whose structure has been determined, and for a proposed cluster [Au12(SR)9](+1) using time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT). Geometry optimization with different exchange-correlation (X-C) functionals yielded small differences which had significant consequences in the spectra calculations. The calculated excitation energies of Au25(SH)18(-1) are in excellent agreement with experiment when the local density approximation Xα-optimized geometry is used with the B3LYP X-C functional. The CAMB3LYP and mCAM functionals yielded OPA results in good agreement with experiment for the dimer systems and the larger clusters. The super-atom theory was useful in analyzing the electronic transitions in the larger clusters. TPA was dominated by resonance effects, and the calculated cross-sections displayed a strong X-C functional dependence.

Time-dependent density functional theory has been used to calculate the one-photon and two-photon absorption spectra of free-base porphyrin, a substituted zinc porphyrin, and a zinc porphyrin dimer, in order to assess the validity of the method to reproduce the large increase in the two-photon absorption (TPA) cross-section for the dimer. Three hybrid functionals with varying amounts of exact exchange were tested, and the calculated one-photon absorption spectra for each of the molecular systems were shown to be in qualitative agreement with the measured spectra. All three functionals predict a large enhancement in the TPA cross-section for the dimer relative to the monomer, in agreement with experimental results. However, because of the sensitivity of the resonance enhancement factor to small differences in the relevant state energies, quantitative prediction of the TPA cross-section by this method is still a challenge.