APS March Meeting 2011
Volume 56, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 21–25, 2011;
Dallas, Texas
Abstract: J40.00015 : Rare Earth Doped Magnetic Clusters of Gold for Medical Application
2:03 PM–2:15 PM
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Author:
In recent years gold clusters have been studied extensively due
to their
unusual properties and applications in cancer treatment and
catalysis. Small
gold clusters having up to 15 atoms are planar as shown in figure 1.
Thereafter a transition occurs to 3D structures but the atomic
structures
continue to have high dispersion. Doping of these clusters could
transform
them in to new structures and affect the properties. Gold
clusters with cage
structures such as W@Au12 can be prepared with large highest
occupied-lowest
unoccupied molecular orbital (HOMO-LUMO) gap by doping with a
transition
metal atom such as W. By changing the transition metal atom, cage
structures
of different sizes as well as different HOMO-LUMO gaps can be
formed which
could be useful in different optical applications. In these
structures gold
clusters are generally non-magnetic. However, it is also possible
to form
magnetic clusters of gold such as Gold clusters have been found
to be good
for cancer treatment. We have performed ab initio calculations on
doping of
rare earths in small gold clusters to obtain magnetic clusters using
projector augmented wave pseudopotential method within
generalized gradient
approximation for the exchange-correlation energy. Elemental gold
clusters
having up to 15 atoms are planar and thereafter 3D structures become
favorable. We have explored the changes in the growth behavior
when a rare
earth atom is doped and studied the variation in the magnetic
behavior as a
function of size. Our results suggest that gold clusters may have
twin
advantage of treating cancer as well as be helful in magnetic
imaging such
as by MRI.
To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2011.MAR.J40.15