Hydrogen Chemisorption on Pd-Doped Copper Clusters

The structural evolution, electronic, and magnetic properties of Pd-doped Cun (n = 1–12) clusters and the dissociative chemisorption of H2 on the lowest energy structures are investigated on the basis of density functional theory. The Pd impurity occupies the surface site and changes the geometry of the pure copper clusters; i.e., a transition from 2D to 3D occurs at n = 5. The relative stability and chemical activity of the minimum energy structures are analyzed through the binding energy per atom, second-order energy difference, and energy gap. The results show that the stability of CunPd containing an even number of Cu atoms is higher than that of Cun+1, which is related to the closed-shell electronic structure. The electronic properties such as the ionization potential and electron affinity are calculated for CunPd and Cun+1 and compared with experimental data available. By studying the H2 chemisorption on the Pd-doped Cun clusters, the results show that the doped clusters possess similar interactions...