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Vibrational Properties of Thiolate-Protected Gold Nanoclusters
摘要： Over recent years, the field of thiolate-protected gold nanoclusters has made remarkable progress. The successful determination of the structure of some of these clusters by X-ray crystallography was a milestone in this field. X-ray crystallography is arguably the most important technique in the field up to now, and it enabled the study of structure evolution as a function of cluster size. It also shed light on the structure of the Au?S interface. Recently, it has been realized that thiolate-protected gold clusters are very dynamic systems. Metal atoms and ligands can exchange easily between clusters. Furthermore, the adsorbed ligands bear conformational dynamics. Such dynamic effects call for experimental methods that can cope with it. Future efforts in this field will be directed toward applications of thiolate-protected clusters, and many of them will rely on dissolved clusters. Therefore, structure determination in solution is an important issue, though it is very challenging. The structure of the metal core and the Au?S interface is not expected to change in solution with respect to the crystal. However, the structure of the adsorbed ligand itself is sensitive to the environment and may be different in the solid state and in solution, as has been shown in fact in the past. It is this (dynamic) structure of the ligand that determines the interaction between the cluster and its environment, which is crucial, for example, for sensing applications. Vibrational spectroscopy is a promising technique to characterize thiolate-protected clusters in different environments. A vibrational spectrum is sensitive to structure (conformation) although this information is often 'hidden' in the spectrum, requiring detailed analysis and support from theory to be deciphered. Compared to other techniques like UV?vis spectroscopy and mass spectrometry, vibrational spectroscopy was not extensively used in the field of thiolate-protected clusters, but we believe that the technique will be very valuable for the future developments in the field.
关键词： vibrational spectroscopy,ligand conformation,thiolate-protected gold nanoclusters,Au?S interface,chirality transfer
更新于2025-09-23 15:21:01
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Growth-Rule-Guided Structural Exploration of Thiolate-Protected Gold Nanoclusters
摘要： Understanding the structure and structure?property relationship of atomic and ligated clusters is one of the central research tasks in the field of cluster research. In chemistry, empirical rules such as the polyhedral skeleton electron pair theory (PSEPT) approach had been outlined to account for skeleton structures of many main-group atomic and ligand-protected transition metal clusters. Nonetheless, because of the diversity of cluster structures and compositions, no uniform structural and electronic rule is available for various cluster compounds. Exploring new cluster structures and their evolution is a hot topic in the field of cluster research for both experiment and theory. In this Account, we introduce our recent progress in the theoretical exploration of structures and evolution patterns of a class of atomically precise thiolate-protected gold nanoclusters using density functional theory computations. Unlike the conventional ligand-protected transition metal compounds, the thiolate-protected gold clusters demonstrate novel metal core/ligand shell interfacial structures in which the Aum(SR)n clusters can be divided into an ordered Au(0) core and a group of oligomeric SR[Au(SR)]x (x = 0, 1, 2, 3, ...) protection motifs. Guided by this “inherent structure rule”, we have devised theoretical methods to rapidly explore cluster structures that do not necessarily require laborious global potential energy surface searches. The structural predictions of Au38(SR)24, Au24(SR)20, and Au44(SR)28 nanoclusters were completely or partially verified by the later X-ray crystallography studies. On the basis of the analysis of cluster structures determined by X-ray crystallography and theoretical prediction, a structural evolution diagram for the face-centered-cubic (fcc)-type Aum(SR)n clusters with m up to 92 has been preliminarily established. The structural evolution diagram indicates some basic structural and electronic evolution patterns of thiolate-protected gold nanoclusters. The fcc Aum(SR)n clusters show a genetic structural evolution pattern in which each step of cluster size increase results in the formation of another Au4 tetrahedron or Au3 triangle unit in the Au core, and every increase of a structural unit in the Au core leads to an increase of two electrons in the whole cluster. The unique one- or two-dimensional cluster size evolution, the isomerism of the Au?S framework, and the formation of a double-helical and cyclic tetrahedron network in the fcc Aum(SR)n clusters all can be addressed from this evolution pattern. The summarized cluster structural evolution diagrams enable us to further explore more stable cluster structures and understand their structure?electronic structure?property relationships.
关键词： face-centered-cubic,thiolate-protected gold nanoclusters,density functional theory,electronic structure,structural evolution
更新于2025-09-23 15:19:57
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Vibrational Spectra of Thiolate-Protected Gold Nanocluster with Infrared Reflection Absorption Spectroscopy: Size- and Temperature-Dependent Ordering Behavior of Organic Monolayer
摘要： Vibrational spectra of thiolate-protected gold nanoclusters, prepared in a monolayer manner using the Langmuir?Blodgett method, were measured by means of infrared re?ection absorption spectroscopy (IRAS). A transferred monolayer of gold nanoclusters ligated by dodecanethiolate or 2-phenylethane-1-thiolate onto a single-crystal gold (Au) surface of Au(111) exhibits worthy IRAS spectra that reveal temperature-dependent behaviors from 100 to 340 K as well as comprehensive peak assignments based on density functional theory calculations: the conformation change in ligands between all trans and gauche defect forms with temperature. In addition to the temperature dependence, the cluster size dependence of alkyl and phenyl moieties is discussed, compared with the IRAS spectra of the corresponding self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on Au(111). Ligands spreading three-dimensionally from the Au core determine the coordination structure of the ligated Au nanoclusters.
关键词： self-assembled monolayers,density functional theory calculations,Langmuir?Blodgett method,thiolate-protected gold nanoclusters,Vibrational spectra,temperature-dependent behaviors,infrared re?ection absorption spectroscopy
更新于2025-09-12 10:27:22