Orbital magnetism through inverse Faraday effect in metal clusters.

In view of the recent increased interest in light-induced manipulation of magnetism in nanometric length scales this work presents metal clusters as promising elementary units for generating all-optical ultrafast magnetization. We perform a theoretical study of the opto-magnetic properties of metal clusters through ab-initio real-time (RT) simulations in real-space using time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT). Through ab-initio calculations of plasmon excitation with circularly polarized laser pulse in atomically precise clusters of simple and noble metals, we discuss the generation of orbital magnetic moments due to the transfer of angular momentum from light field through optical absorption at resonance energies.

Visualizing screening in noble-metal clusters: static dynamic.

The localized surface-plasmon resonance of metal nanoparticles and clusters corresponds to a collective charge oscillation of the quasi-free metal electrons. The polarization of the more localized d electrons opposes the overall polarization of the electron cloud and thus screens the surface plasmon. By contrast, a static electric external field is well screened, as even very small noble-metal clusters are highly metallic: the field inside is practically zero except for the effect of the Friedel-oscillation-like modulations which lead to small values of the polarization of the d electrons.

Crucial Role of Conjugation in Monolayer-Protected Metal Clusters with Aromatic Ligands: Insights from the Archetypal AuL Cluster Compounds.

Ligand-protected metal clusters are employed in a great many applications that include notably energy conversion and biomedical uses. The interaction between the ligands and the metallic cores, mediated by an often complex interface, profoundly influences the properties of small clusters, in particular. Nonetheless, the mechanisms of interaction remain far from fully understood.

How metallic are noble-metal clusters? Static screening and polarizability in quantum-sized silver and gold nanoparticles.

Metallicity of nanoparticles can be defined in different ways. One possibility is to look at the degree to which external fields are screened inside the object. This screening would be complete in a classical perfect metal where surface charges arrange on the classical -i.

Identifying Electronic Modes by Fourier Transform from δ-Kick Time-Evolution TDDFT Calculations.

Time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) is widely used for calculating electron excitations in clusters and large molecules. For optical excitations, TDDFT is customarily applied in two distinct approaches: transition-based linear-response TDDFT (LR-TDDFT) and the real-time formalism (RT-TDDFT). The former directly provides the energies and transition densities of the excitations, but it requires the calculation of a large number of empty electron states, which makes it cumbersome for large systems.