A first-principles study of the influence of helium atoms on the optical response of small silver clusters

Optical excitation spectra of Ag(n) and Ag(n)@He(60) (n = 2, 8) clusters are investigated in the framework of the time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) within the linear response regime. We have performed the ab initio calculations for two different exact exchange functionals (GGA-exact and LDA-exact). The computed spectra of Ag(n)@He(60) clusters with the GGA-exact functional accounting for exchange-correlation effects are found to be generally in a relatively good agreement with the experiment. A strategy is proposed to obtain the ground-state structures of the Ag(n)@He(60) clusters and in the initial process of the geometry optimization, the He environment is simulated with buckyballs. A redshift of the silver clusters spectra is observed in the He environment with respect to the ones of bare silver clusters. This observation is discussed and explained in terms of a contraction of the Ag-He bonding length and a consequent confinement of the s valence electrons in silver clusters. Likewise, the Mie-Gans predictions combined with our TDDFT calculations also show that the dielectric effect produced by the He matrix is considerably less important in explaining the red-shifting observed in the optical spectra of Ag(n)@He(60) clusters. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3556821]