The Role of Donor and Acceptor Substituents on the Nonlinear Optical Properties of Gold Nanoclusters
In recent years, a large number of monolayer-protected clusters (MPCs) have been studied by means of single crystal structure characterization. A central aspect of research on MPCs is the correlation of their interesting optical properties with structural features and the formulation of a theoretical framework that allows interpretation of their unique properties. For this, superatom and jellium models have been proven successful. Little attention, however, has been paid to the influence of the protecting ligands. Here, we investigate the effect of changes in [Au25(SR)18-x(SR′)x]−, where SR′ represents a para-substituted thiophenolate derivative (SPh-4-X). We computed the first hyperpolariz…
Symmetry breaking in ligand-protected gold clusters probed by nonlinear optics
The first hyperpolarizabilities of [Au25(SR)18](-1/0) and Au38(SR)24 clusters were determined by Hyper-Rayleigh Scattering. A strong dependence on the molecular symmetry was observed, and we explore two strategies to destroy the center of inversion in [Au25(SR)18](-1/0), protection by chiral ligands and alloying of the cluster with silver. This may open new avenues to applications of Au : SR clusters in second-order nonlinear optics.
Role of Donor and Acceptor Substituents on the Nonlinear Optical Properties of Gold Nanoclusters
In recent years, a large number of monolayer-protected clusters (MPCs) have been studied by means of single crystal structure characterization. A central aspect of research on MPCs is the correlation of their interesting optical properties with structural features and the formulation of a theoretical framework that allows interpretation of their unique properties. For this, superatom and jellium models have been proven successful. Little attention, however, has been paid to the influence of the protecting ligands. Here, we investigate the effect of changes in [Au25(SR)18-x(SR′)x]−, where SR′ represents a para-substituted thiophenolate derivative (SPh-4-X). We computed the first hyperpolariz…