We observe using ab initio methods that localized surface plasmon resonances in icosahedral silver nanoparticles enter the asymptotic region already between diameters of 1-2 nm, converging close to the classical quasistatic limit around 3.4 eV. We base the observation on time-dependent densityfunctional theory simulations of the icosahedral silver clusters Ag55 (1.06 nm), Ag147 (1.60 nm), Ag309 (2.14 nm), and Ag561 (2.68 nm). The simulation method combines the adiabatic GLLB-SC exchange-correlation functional with real time propagation in an atomic orbital basis set using the projector augmented wave method. The method has been implemented to the electron structure code GPAW within the scope of this work. We obtain good agreement with experimental data and modelled results, including photoemission and plasmon resonance. Moreover we can extrapolate the ab initio results to the classical quasistatically modelled icosahedral clusters.

We report the oxygen K-edge spectra of ices Ih, VI, VII, and VIII measured with X-ray Raman scattering. The pre-edge and main-edge contributions increase strongly with density, even though the hydrogen bond arrangements are very similar in these phases. While the near-edge spectral features in water and ice have often been linked to hydrogen bonding, we show that the spectral changes in the phases studied here can be quantitatively related to structural changes in the second coordination shell. Density-functional theory calculations reproduce the experimental results and support the conclusion. Our results suggest that non-hydrogen-bonded neighbors can have a significant effect also in the liquid water spectrum. We discuss the implications of the results for the actively debated interpretation of the liquid water spectrum in terms of local structure.

ERKALE is a novel software program for computing X-ray properties, such as ground-state electron momentum densities, Compton profiles, and core and valence electron excitation spectra of atoms and molecules. The program operates at Hartree-Fock or density-functional level of theory and supports Gaussian basis sets of arbitrary angular momentum and a wide variety of exchange-correlation functionals. ERKALE includes modern convergence accelerators such as Broyden and ADIIS and it is suitable for general use, as calculations with thousands of basis functions can routinely be performed on desktop computers. Furthermore, ERKALE is written in an object oriented manner, making the code easy to understand and to extend to new properties while being ideal also for teaching purposes.

The interpretation of the oxygen near-edge spectrum of water has been debated intensively. We present new measurements of the temperature dependence of the spectrum and perform a van't Hoff analysis for the pre-edge intensity. Many microscopical and thermodynamic properties of liquid water have been described in the literature in terms of mixture models, which presume the existence of two distinct species with different local structures. Assuming such a two-component model here leads to a van't Hoff enthalpy change ΔH = 0.9 ± 0.2 kcal/mol for the conversion between the two presumed components contributing to the pre-edge intensity. The small value of ΔH compared to the average bond energy implies that the components are nearly equally bonded, suggesting that the pre-edge is sensitive to structural changes that leave hydrogen bonds intact. We further show that the pre-edge intensity in the vapor, liquid, and ice Ih spectra can be correlated with enthalpy changes. While the pre-edge intensity in water has often been interpreted to imply a large fraction of broken hydrogen bonds in the liquid, we propose that the current results indicate that those bonds would not be considered broken by energetical criteria.

We report on the formation of tetrahydrofuran clathrate hydrate studied by x-ray Raman scattering measurements at the oxygen K edge. A comparison of x-ray Raman spectra measured from water-tetrahydrofuran mixtures and tetrahydrofuran hydrate at different temperatures supports stochastic hydrate formation models rather than models assuming hydrate precursors. This is confirmed by molecular dynamics simulations and density functional theory calculations of x-ray Raman spectra. In addition, changes in the spectra of tetrahydrofuran hydrate with temperatures close to the hydrate's dissociation temperature were observed and may be connected to changes in hydrate's local structure due to the formation of hydrogen bonds between guest and water molecules.

Non-resonant inelastic X-ray scattering of core electrons is a prominent tool for studying site-selective, i.e. momentum-transfer-dependent, shallow absorption edges of liquids and samples under extreme conditions. A bottleneck of the analysis of such spectra is the appropriate subtraction of the underlying background owing to valence and core electron excitations. This background exhibits a strong momentum-transfer dependence ranging from plasmon and particle-hole pair excitations to Compton scattering of core and valence electrons. In this work an algorithm to extract the absorption edges of interest from the superimposed background for a wide range of momentum transfers is presented and discussed for two examples, silicon and the compound silicondioxide.

We present an approach for generating local numerical basis sets of improving accuracy for first-principles nanoplasmonics simulations within time-dependent density functional theory. The method is demonstrated for copper, silver, and gold nanoparticles that are of experimental interest but computationally demanding due to the semi-core d-electrons that affect their plasmonic response. The basis sets are constructed by augmenting numerical atomic orbital basis sets by truncated Gaussian-type orbitals generated by the completeness-optimization scheme, which is applied to the photoabsorption spectra of homoatomic metal atom dimers. We obtain basis sets of improving accuracy up to the complete basis set limit and demonstrate that the performance of the basis sets transfers to simulations of larger nanoparticles and nanoalloys as well as to calculations with various exchange-correlation functionals. This work promotes the use of the local basis set approach of controllable accuracy in first-principles nanoplasmonics simulations and beyond.

We present a study of the local electronic structure surrounding the OH group in a series of alcohols by X-ray Raman scattering at the oxygen K edge. The samples include the linear alcohols from methanol to butanol as well as the isomers isopropanol, isobutanol, and 2-butanol. For interpretation and computational benchmarks, we combine classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and density functional theory (DFT) spectrum calculations. The results indicate that intramolecular structure influences the spectra considerably. Nevertheless, hydrogen bonding produces a clear spectral signature that is nearly identical in all of the alcohols. The spectral calculations using MD structures closely reproduce the experimental results and support the picture provided by the MD simulations.