We present a computational scheme for extracting the energy-level alignment of a metal/molecule interface, based on constrained density functional theory and local exchange and correlation functionals. The method, applied here to benzene on Li(100), allows us to evaluate charge-transfer energies, as well as the spatial distribution of the image charge induced on the metal surface. We systematically study the energies for charge transfer from the molecule to the substrate as function of the molecule-substrate distance, and investigate the effects arising from image-charge confinement and local charge neutrality violation. For benzene on Li(100) we find that the image-charge plane is located at about 1.8Å above the Li surface, and that our calculated charge-transfer energies compare perfectly with those obtained with a classical electrostatic model having the image plane located at the same position. The methodology outlined here can be applied to study any metal/organic interface in the weak coupling limit at the computational cost of a total energy calculation. Most importantly, as the scheme is based on total energies and not on correcting the Kohn-Sham quasiparticle spectrum, accurate results can be obtained with local/semilocal exchange and correlation functionals. This enables a systematic approach to convergence.

It is often assumed that the hydrogen atoms in the thiol groups of a benzene-1,4-dithiol dissociate when Au-benzene-1,4-dithiol-Au junctions are formed. We demonstrate, by stability and transport property calculations, that this assumption cannot be made. We show that the dissociative adsorption of methanethiol and benzene-1,4-dithiol molecules on a flat Au(111) surface is energetically unfavorable and that the activation barrier for this reaction is as high as 1 eV. For the molecule in the junction, our results show, for all electrode geometries studied, that the thiol junctions are energetically more stable than their thiolate counterparts. Due to the fact that density functional theory (DFT) within the local density approximation (LDA) underestimates the energy difference between the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital and the highest occupied molecular orbital by several electron-volts, and that it does not capture the renormalization of the energy levels due to the image charge effect, the conductance of the Au-benzene-1,4-dithiol-Au junctions is overestimated. After taking into account corrections due to image charge effects by means of constrained-DFT calculations and electrostatic classical models, we apply a scissor operator to correct the DFT energy level positions, and calculate the transport properties of the thiol and thiolate molecular junctions as a function of the electrode separation. For the thiol junctions, we show that the conductance decreases as the electrode separation increases, whereas the opposite trend is found for the thiolate junctions. Both behaviors have been observed in experiments, therefore pointing to the possible coexistence of both thiol and thiolate junctions. Moreover, the corrected conductance values, for both thiol and thiolate, are up to two orders of magnitude smaller than those calculated with DFT-LDA.This brings the theoretical results in quantitatively good agreement with experimental data.

Among the different synthesis approaches to colloidal nanocrystals, a recently developed toolkit is represented by cation exchange reactions, where the use of template nanocrystals gives access to materials that would be hardly attainable via direct synthesis. Besides, postsynthetic treatments, such as thermally activated solid-state reactions, represent a further flourishing route to promote finely controlled cation exchange. Here, we report that, upon in situ heating in a transmission electron microscope, Cu2Se or Cu nanocrystals deposited on an amorphous solid substrate undergo partial loss of Cu atoms, which are then engaged in local cation exchange reactions with Cu “acceptor” phases represented by rod- and wire-shaped CdSe nanocrystals. This thermal treatment slowly transforms the initial CdSe nanocrystals into Cu2–xSe nanocrystals, through the complete sublimation of Cd and the partial sublimation of Se atoms. Both Cu “donor” and “acceptor” particles were not always in direct contact with each other; hence, the gradual transfer of Cu species from Cu2Se or metallic Cu to CdSe nanocrystals was mediated by the substrate and depended on the distance between the donor and acceptor nanostructures. Differently from what happens in the comparably faster cation exchange reactions performed in liquid solution, this study shows that slow cation exchange reactions can be performed at the solid state and helps to shed light on the intermediate steps involved in such reactions.

We report on surface effects on the electronic properties of interfaces in epitaxial LaAlO 3 /SrTiO 3 heterostructures. Our results are based on first-principles electronic structure calculations for wellrelaxed multilayer configurations, terminated by an ultrathin LaAlO 3 surface layer. On varying the thickness of this layer, we find that the interface conduction states are subject to almost rigid band shifts due to a modified Fermi energy. Confirming experimental data, the electronic properties of heterointerfaces therefore can be tuned systematically by alterating the surface-interface distance.We expect that this mechanism is very general and applies to most oxide heterostructures.