A confinement induced spectroscopic study of noble gas atoms using equation of motion architecture: Encapsulation within fullerene’s voids

Abstract

A relativistic study of spectroscopic properties of the endohedral fullerenes Ng@Cq 60 (where Ng = He, Ne and q = 0, ±1, ±2 are the charges) associated with the C60 molecule has been done using the equation of motion coupled cluster (EOM-CC) methodology. Specific properties estimated are the transition energies, dipole oscillator strengths, and transition probabilities for the low-lying excitations 1s2(1S0) → 1snp (1P1) (n = 2, 3, 4) for He@Cq 60 and 1s22s22p6 (1S0) → 1s22s22p5ns/nd (1P1) (n = 3, 4) for Ne@Cq 60, which have been compared with those for the isolated atom to depict the confinement effect of the host molecule on the encapsulated atom. This is accomplished by introducing an effective potential to the atomic Hamiltonian induced by the fullerene moiety and its charge. The EOM-CC results have been compared with those estimated with the random phase approximation (and configuration interaction singles) to understand the effect of electron correlation under such confinement. The systematic and interesting behavior of the properties is highlighted indicating the effect of fullerene cage potential on the redistribution of electron density of the guest atom.