Search results for "Nanocluster"
showing 10 items of 178 documents
Dynamic Diglyme-Mediated Self-Assembly of Gold Nanoclusters
2015
We report the assembly of gold nanoclusters by the nonthiolate ligand diglyme into discrete and dynamic assemblies. To understand this surprising phenomenon, the assembly of Au20(SC2H4Ph)15-diglyme into Au20(SC2H4Ph)15-diglyme-Au20(SC2H4Ph)15 is explored in detail. The assembly is examined by high-angle annular dark field scanning transmission electron microscopy, size exclusion chromatography, mass spectrometry, IR spectroscopy, and calorimetry. We establish a dissociation constant for dimer to monomer conversion of 20.4 μM. Theoretical models validated by transient absorption spectroscopy predict a low-spin monomer and a high-spin dimer, with assembly enabled through weak diglyme oxygen-g…
Effects of Silver Doping on the Geometric and Electronic Structure and Optical Absorption Spectra of the Au_{25-n}Ag_{n}(SH)_{18}^{-} (n = 1, 2, 4, 6…
2012
The effect of silver doping of the Au25(SH)18– nanoparticle is studied by investigating Au25–nAgn(SH)18– (n = 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12) systems using DFT. For n = 1, doping of the icosahedral shell of the metal core is energetically more favorable than doping of the metal–thiolate units or the center of the core. For n ≥ 2, only doping of the core surface is considered, and arrangements where the silver dopants are in close proximity tend to be slightly less favorable. However, energy differences are small, and all conformations are accessible under experimental conditions. Boltzmann-averaged excitation spectra for these systems show similar features to the undoped Au25(SH)18–. The main differ…
Site-specific targeting of enterovirus capsid by functionalized monodisperse gold nanoclusters
2014
Development of precise protocols for accurate site-specific conjugation of monodisperse inorganic nanoparticles to biological material is one of the challenges in contemporary bionanoscience and nanomedicine. We report here a successful site-specific covalent conjugation of functionalized atomically monodisperse gold clusters with 1.5-nm metal cores to viral surfaces. Water-soluble Au102(para-mercaptobenzoic acid)44 clusters, functionalized by maleimide linkers to target cysteines of viral capsid proteins, were synthesized and conjugated to enteroviruses echovirus 1 and coxsackievirus B3. Quantitative analysis of transmission electron microscopy images and the known virus structures showed …
Solvent-mediated assembly of atom-precise gold–silver nanoclusters to semiconducting one-dimensional materials
2020
Bottom-up design of functional device components based on nanometer-sized building blocks relies on accurate control of their self-assembly behavior. Atom-precise metal nanoclusters are well-characterizable building blocks for designing tunable nanomaterials, but it has been challenging to achieve directed assembly to macroscopic functional cluster-based materials with highly anisotropic properties. Here, we discover a solvent-mediated assembly of 34-atom intermetallic gold–silver clusters protected by 20 1-ethynyladamantanes into 1D polymers with Ag–Au–Ag bonds between neighboring clusters as shown directly by the atomic structure from single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Density fun…
Au25(SEt)18 a nearly naked thiolate-protected Au25 cluster Struct. analysis by single crystal X-ray crystallograp. and electron nuclear double res
2014
X-ray crystallography has been fundamental in discovering fine structural features of ultrasmall gold clusters capped by thiolated ligands. For still unknown structures, however, new tools capable of providing relevant structural information are sought. We prepared a 25-gold atom nanocluster protected by the smallest ligand ever used, ethanethiol. This cluster displays the electrochemistry, mass spectrometry, and UV-vis absorption spectroscopy features of similar Au25 clusters protected by 18 thiolated ligands. The anionic and the neutral form of Au25(SEt)18 were fully characterized by (1)H and (13)C NMR spectroscopy, which confirmed the monolayer's properties and the paramagnetism of neutr…
Point Group Symmetry Analysis of the Electronic Structure of Bare and Protected Metal Nanocrystals
2018
The electronic structures of a variety of experimentally identified gold and silver nanoclusters from 20 to 246 atoms, either unprotected or protected by several types of ligands, are characterized by using point group specific symmetry analysis. The delocalized electron states around the HOMO-LUMO energy gap, originating from the metal s-electrons in the cluster core, show symmetry characteristics according to the point group that describes best the atomic arrangement of the core. This indicates strong effects of the lattice structure and overall shape of the metal core to the electronic structure, which cannot be captured by the conventional analysis based on identification of spherical a…
Gold nanoclusters for ratiometric sensing of pH in extremely acidic media.
2019
AuNCs capped with β-nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate exhibit an outstanding performance as fluorescent pH sensors; specifically they exhibit a high emission in strongly acidic media and linear dependence on pH in extremely acidic media (0.6–2.7) as well as in the 7.0–9.2 pH range, while they are unresponsive at intermediate pH values. Remarkably, these AuNCs make ratiometric sensing possible in extremely acidic media with a single fluorophore, specifically the nanocluster itself.
Analysis of the Electronic Structure of Non-Spherical Ligand-Protected Metal Nanoclusters: The Case of a Box-Like Ag67
2016
In this work we introduce a new strategy to investigate the electronic shell structure of ligand-protected metal nanoclusters of polyhedral core shape. The central idea is to identify the symmetry of the Kohn–Sham molecular orbitals of an atomistic structure based on their projection onto the electronic states of a jellium system with a similar shape of the background charge density. Herein, we study the connection between a reduced atomistic model of the recently reported box-like [Ag67(SR)32(PR3)8]3+ nanocluster and a jellium box consisting of 32 free electrons. With this approach, we determine the symmetry of electronic states of the metal core and identify those that are involved in the…
Influence of metal–support interaction on the surface structure of gold nanoclusters deposited on native SiOx/Si substrates
2014
The structure of small gold nanoclusters (R ~ 2.5 nm) deposited on different silica on silicon substrates is investigated using several characterization techniques (AFM, XRD, EXAFS and GISAXS). The grain morphology and the surface roughness of the deposited gold clusters are determined by AFM. The in-plane GISAXS intensity is modelled in order to obtain information about the cluster size and the characteristic length scale of the surface roughness. AFM and GISAXS results are in excellent agreement and show that the surface morphology of the deposited clusters depends on whether defect-rich (native) or defect-free (thermal) silica is used as a substrate. Gold clusters show a strong tendency …
Ab Initio Simulation of Clusters: Relativistic Effects in Structure and Bonding of Noble Metal Nanoparticles
2005
Resolving the atomic and electronic structures of nanoclusters represents an important preliminary for their controlled use in future nanotechnologies. Here we show through the comparison of density-functional calculations with high-resolution photoelectron spectroscopy that 1.4 nm nanoparticles of silver (negatively charged clusters of 53 to 58 atoms) are icosahedral-based structures displaying a perfect icosahedral-induced electronic shell structure for Ag 55 − and slightly perturbed shell structures for the neighboring cluster sizes. At variance, 55-atom gold clusters exhibit several isomeric structures of low symmetry, with a largely diminished electronic shell structure. This surprisin…