Ultrastable actinide endohedral borospherenes
Since the discovery of the first all-boron fullerenes B 40 -/0 , metal-doped borospherenes have received extensive attention. So far, in spite of theoretical efforts on metalloborospherenes, the feasibility of actinide analogues remains minimally explored. Here we report a series of actinide borospherenes AnB n (An=U, Th; n=36, 38, 40) from extensive first-principles theory calculations. All the AnB n complexes are found to possess endohedral structures (An@B n ) as the global minima. In particular, U@B 36 (C 2h , 3 A g ) and Th@B 38 (C 2h , 3 B u ) exhibit nearly ideal endohedral borospherene structures. The C 2h U@B 36 and Th@B 38 complexes are predicted to be highly robust both thermodynamically and dynamically. In addition to the actinide size match to the cage, the covalent character of the metal-cage bonding in U@B 36 and Th@B 38 affords further stabilization. Bonding analysis indicates that the C 2h Th@B 38 exhibits 3D aromaticity with σ plus π double delocalization bonding. IN conclusion, the results demonstrate that doping with appropriate actinide atoms is promising to stabilize diverse borospherenes, and may provide routes for borospherene modification and functionalization.