Sr-centered monocyclic carbon ring Sr@C14: A new stable cluster.

ABSTRACT

The study of stable neutral metal endohedral cyclo[n]carbon is helpful for discovering single-molecule devices. Extensive structural search and density functional theory calculations performed here indicate that the perfect planar alkaline metal-doped complexes Sr@C14 possess the well-defined global minima of the system with the metal atom located exactly at the center of the carbon ring. The configuration and bonding properties of C14 are different from those of pristine cyclo [14]carbon. The significant stabilization when forming Sr@C14 predominantly originates from the electrostatic interaction between Sr2+ and C142-. The detailed molecular orbital, nucleus-independent chemical shift (NICS), and ring current analyses indicate that Sr@C14 is aromatic in nature. The NICS values of Sr@C14 are considerably larger than those of benzene. Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations at different temperatures reveal that this system exhibits certain stability at low or moderate temperatures. The findings of this study effectively enrich the chemical structures and bonding patterns of metal-doped cyclo[n]carbon and provide the knowledge required to obtain novel structures of Sr@C14 in future experiments.