This dissertation employs the density functional theory (DFT) to investigate the oxidation of carbon monoxide (CO) on the W(111) surface and on the surface of Wn (n=10¡V15) nanoparticles. Since the properties of materials are significantly dependent on material size, we look into the influence of both the size and surface structure of tungsten catalysts on the CO oxidation process. The work contains two parts. Part 1: The adsorption and dissociation of O2 and CO on W(111) surface and Wn (n=10¡V15) nanoparticles. The chemical adsorption of O2 and CO on solid catalysts plays a very important role in heterogeneous catalysis for the CO oxidation reaction. The configurations, adsorption energies, vibration frequencies and electronic structures of adsorbates on W(111) and Wn (n=10¡V15) nanoparticles have been calculated to investigate their surface activity. The results indicate that adsorption of O2 and CO on Wn (n=10¡V15) nanoparticles are more stable compared to on the W(111) surface. The minimum energy pathways and transition states of chemical reaction processes on metal surfaces were also studied by the nudged elastic band (NEB) method. The dissociation barriers of O2 chemisorbed on Wn (n=10¡V15) nanoparticles are smaller those for the W(111) surface. Our results demonstrate that both the surface structure and size of metal significantly influence the adsorption and dissociation properties of adsorbates. Density functional theory-molecular dynamics (DFT-MD) simulation was also adapted to clarify the mechanism of O2 deposition on the W(111) surface. Observations of the variations of energy and bond lengths as a function of time show that the interaction between O2 and W atoms weakens the O¡VO bond, giving rise to the dissociation process. We conclude that the dissociation probability of an O2 molecule is affected by chemisorbed O2 coverage in the vicinity. Part 2: The mechanism of CO oxidation on W(111) and Wn nanoparticles. The oxidation of the CO molecule on transition metals usually follows two reaction pathways, either the Eley-Rideal (ER) mechanism or the Langmuir-Hinshelwood (LH) mechanism. In the ER mechanism, the CO molecule in the gas phase reacts directly with activated O2. The LH mechanism generally involves a few elementary steps, namely the co-adsorption of the O2 and CO molecules, O2 dissociation to form atomic oxygen, diffusion of atomic oxygen, and desorption of CO2. The oxidation of CO on a W10 nanoparticle surface and the W(111) surface are investigated by DFT calculations. Three pathways were studied in this dissertation: (i) CO + O2¡÷CO2 + O, (ii) CO + O2¡÷CO + O + O¡÷CO2 + O and (iii) CO + O¡÷CO2 via both LH and ER mechanisms. The calculated results show that CO oxidation on both the W10 nanoparticle and W(111) surfaces follow the ER rather than the LH mechanism. The CO oxidation on the W10 nanoparticle and W(111) surfaces occurs most easily via pathway (i) as compared to other two.

Test power is an important issue in deep submicron semiconductor testing. Too much power supply noise and too much power dissipation can result in excessive temperature rise, both leading to overkill during delay test. Scan-based test has been widely adopted as one of the most commonly used VLSI testing method. The test power during scan testing comprises shift power and capture power. The power consumed in the shift cycle dominates the total power dissipation. It is crucial for IC manufacturing companies to achieve near constant power consumption for a given timing window in order to keep the chip under test (CUT) at a near constant temperature, to make it easy to characterize the circuit behavior and prevent delay test over kill. To achieve constant test power, first, we built a fast and accurate power model, which can estimate the shift power without logic simulation of the circuit. We also proposed an efficient and low power X-bit Filling process, which could potentially reduce both the shift power and capture power. Then, we introduced an efficient test pattern reordering algorithm, which achieves near constant power between groups of patterns. The number of patterns in a group is determined by the thermal constant of the chip. Experimental results show that our proposed power model has very good correlation. Our proposed X-Fill process achieved both minimum shift power and capture power. The algorithm supports multiple scan chains and can achieve constant power within different regions of the chip. The greedy test pattern reordering algorithm can reduce the power variation from 29-126 percent to 8-10 percent or even lower if we reduce the power variance threshold. Excessive noise can significantly affect the timing performance of Deep Sub-Micron (DSM) designs and cause non-trivial additional delay. In delay test generation, test compaction and test fill techniques can produce excessive power supply noise. This can result in delay test overkill. Prior approaches to power supply noise aware delay test compaction are too costly due to many logic simulations, and are limited to static compaction. We proposed a realistic low cost delay test compaction flow that guardbands the delay using a sequence of estimation metrics to keep the circuit under test supply noise more like functional mode. This flow has been implemented in both static compaction and dynamic compaction. We analyzed the relationship between delay and voltage drop, and the relationship between effective weighted switching activity (WSA) and voltage drop. Based on these correlations, we introduce the low cost delay test pattern compaction framework considering power supply noise. Experimental results on ISCAS89 circuits show that our low cost framework is up to ten times faster than the prior high cost framework. Simulation results also verify that the low cost model can correctly guardband every path‟s extra noise-induced delay. We discussed the rules to set different constraints in the levelized framework. The veto process used in the compaction can be also applied to other constraints, such as power and temperature.

The atomic arrangements and electronic structures of [0001] oriented GaN nanowires with different side surfaces have been studied by the first-principles molecular dynamics (MD) method and the conventional first-principles electronic structure calculation method. It is found that due to the dangling bond effects, the Ga-N bonds on the side surfaces of the nanowire tilt with Ga surface atoms moving inward. The radius of the nanowire is found to be reduced with respect to the wire truncated from a bulk GaN solid, which can be attributed to the surface tension effect. Due to the large ratio between the numbers of surface atoms and bulk atoms, the electronic structures of these nanowires are very different from those of bulk and films due to the large number of surface atoms or dangling-bond states, so that a bulk-like energy gap can not be clearly defined.

In this thesis, we first investigate the physical properties of some metal atoms, molecules and their clusters. We then study the interaction of these with silicon and graphene surfaces. The adsorption of NH3 and H2S molecules on Au3Pt3 is also studied. We calculate the equilibrium atomic structures of metal clusters using density functional theory (DFT) up to eight atoms. The electronic structures of these free and adsorbed clusters are also calculated in detail. We find that the adsorption generally modifies the structure of the Au3Pt3 cluster and the adsorbate (NH3 and H2S ). We also study the site-dependent shapes of the Au8 cluster, associated adsorption energies, band structures and the corresponding charge distribution for the S i(100) asymmetric surface. We show that the electronic properties of the cluster and the substrate complex change with the location of the cluster on the surface. We study the AunPtn clusters on graphene surface. We observe that graphene can be metallic or semiconducting depending on the number of Au and Pt atoms in the cluster and the charge transfer between the cluster and the graphene. We have studied bismuth both as an adsorbate and substitutional dopant in graphene. We have shown that bismuth causes a weak p-type doping for the adsorption case within generalized gradient approximation (GGA), but it n-dopes graphene when it is substitutional and for the adsorption case within local density approximation (LDA). Our results are in agreement with recent angle-resolved photoemission results for the weak adsorption.

Direct, gas phase propylene epoxidation reactions are carried out on model slabs representing Ru-Cu(111) bimetallic and Cu(111) metallic catalyst surfaces with periodic Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations. Ru-Cu(111) surface is modelled as a Cu(111) monolayer totally covering the surface of Ru(0001) surface underneath. The catalytic activity is evaluated following the generally accepted oxametallacycle mechanism. It is shown that the Ru-Cu(111) surface has a lower energy barrier (0.48 eV) for the stripping of the allylic hydrogen of propylene and a higher energy barrier (0.92 eV) towards propylene oxametallacycle (OMMP) formation compared to 0.75 eV barrier for OMMP formation and 0.83 eV barrier for allylic hydrogen stripping on Cu(111), and thus ineffective for propylene oxide production based on the investigated models and mechanism. In order to analyze the observed inability of the Ru-Cu(111) surface to selectively catalyze propylene oxide formation, a Lewis acid probe, SO2, was adsorbed on the oxygenated Cu(111) and Ru-Cu(111) surfaces and the binding energies, a measure of the basicity of the chemisorbed oxygen on the surfaces, on two systems are compared. As a conclusion, the reason behind this ineffectiveness of the Ru-Cu(111) surface for selectively catalyzing propylene epoxidation is related to the higher basicity of the atomic oxygen adsorbed on Ru-Cu(111) compared to the oxygen on Cu(111). The results are consistent both with recent publications about propylene epoxidation and previous studies performed about the structure of Ru-Cu catalysts.

Three Miller index surfaces of copper, Cu(111), Cu(211), and Cu(643) were evaluated for spontaneous carbon dioxide dissociation. DFT (Density Functional Theory) was used to characterize the initial and final adsorption states and Climbing Image Nudged Elastic Band (cNEB) calculations were used to identify the dissociation transition sites. A simple kinetic model was formulated and used to quantitatively compare the three surfaces and determine which facilitated CO₂ dissociation most readily.

The present work gives an overview of the authors work in the field of electronic structure calculations. The main objective is to show how electronic structure methods in particular density functional theory (DFT) can be used for the description and interpretation of experimental results in order to enhance our understanding of physical and chemical properties of materials. The recently found superconductor MgB2 is an example where the electronic structure was the key to our understanding of the surprising properties of this material. The experimental confirmation of the predicted electronic structure from first principles calculations was very important for the acceptance of earlier theoretical suggestions. Molecular crystals build from magnetic clusters containing a few transition metal ions and organic ligands show fascinating magnetic properties at the nanoscale. DFT allows for the investigation of magnetic ordering and magnetic anisotropy energies. The magnetic anisotropy which results mainly from the spin-orbit coupling determines many of the properties which make the single molecule magnets interesting.

<p>The presented thesis is devoted to the field of organic light emitting</p><p>diodes (OLEDs). Time-dependent Kohn-Sham density functional theory</p><p>(TDDFT) is applied</p><p>in order to eludicate optical properties such as fluorescence and</p><p>phosphorescence for some of the most important materials. The</p><p>accuracy of TDDFT is evaluated with respect to the calculated absorption</p><p>and emission spectra for commonly used light emitting polymers.</p><p>A continuation of this work is devoted to Polyfluorene as this polymer</p><p>has proven to be very promising. In this study the chain</p><p>length dependence of its singlet and triplet excited states is</p><p>analyzed as well as the excited state structures.</p><p>Understanding the phosphorescence mechanism of tris(2-phenylpyridine)Iridium is</p><p>of importance in order to interpret the high efficiency of OLEDs</p><p>containing these specimens. The mechanism is analyzed by calculating</p><p>the electric transition dipole moments by means of TDDFT using</p><p>quadratic response functions.</p><p>As not only the optical properties are essential for effective</p><p>devices, electron transfer properties are addressed. The electron</p><p>transfer capability of the sulfur and nitrogen analogues of Oxadiazole</p><p>is evaluated through their internal reorganization energy.</p>

<p>Density Functional Theory is used in order to shed light on the reaction mechanisms and the origins of stereoselectivity in enantioselective organocatalytic reactions. The reactions investigated are the dipeptide-catalyzed aldol reaction, the cinchona thiourea-catalyzed nitroaldol reaction and the prolinol derivative-catalyzed hydrophosphination reaction. We can justify the stereoselectivity in the reactions from the energies arising from different interactions in the transition states. The major contributions to the energy differences are found to be hydrogen bond-type attractions and steric repulsions. This knowledge will be useful in the design of improved catalysts as well as general understanding of the basis of selection in other reactions</p>

Ce travail s'inscrit dans un programme de recherche visant à synthétiser de nouveaux composés organiques et phosphorés possédant un rapport activité/toxicité convenable. Pour cela, nous avons réalisé la synthèse de nouveaux motifs N-substitués du benzothiazole et du thiadiazole tels que des thiols, aminothiols, acides thiosulfoniques et phosphorothioates. Tous ces composés ont été caractérisés physico-chimiquement par spectroscopie RMN (proton, carbone, phosphore, 2D), par spectrométrie de masse, analyse élémentaire et pour certains d'entre eux par diffraction des rayons X. L'activité de la plupart des composés a été évaluée par des tests in vitro. Les résultats expérimentaux ont été confirmés par des calculs théoriques de DFT visant à étudier le mécanisme de capture des radicaux libres par nos composés. D'autre part, une étude de relation structure activité (QSAR) a été réalisée. Les résultats nous ont permis d'élaborer un modèle permettant d'établir une relation structure-activité.