Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.110, No.29, 9247-9253, 2006
Prediction of low-energy isomers of large fullerenes from C-132 to C-160
To predict energetically favored isomers, we used a topological scheme as a prescreening tool to select candidate isomers for each fullerene from C-106 to C-160. Comparison with the PM3 and tight-binding ( TB) potential calculated results and few published data for the low-energy isomers of C-106 to C-130 indicates that the prescreening approach is feasible. For each fullerene from C-132 up to C-160, the selected 1000 candidate isomers were further optimized by PM3 and TB potential. The analysis of the semiempirical PM3 and TB results of C-106 to C-160 provides some qualitative features of the large fullerenes. Furthermore, calculations at the B3LYP/6-31G*//B3LYP/3-21G level of theory were carried out on the top ten PM3 and TB low-energy isomers of C-132 to C-160 to accurately predict the stable isomers, and the HOMO-LUMO gap, the ionization energy, and electron affinity of the lowest-energy isomers were also investigated at the same level.