Hexane-driven icosahedral to cuboctahedral structure transformation of gold nanoclusters.
Whether and how nanoclusters possessing a rich diversity of possible geometric configurations can transform from one structural type to another are critical issues in cluster science. Here we demonstrate an icosahedral-to-cuboctahedral structural transformation of Au nanoclusters driven by changing the chemical environment. For icosahedral Au(13) clusters protected by a mixture of dodecanethiol and triphenylphosphine ligands, solvent exchange of ethanol by hexane leads to quick selective desorption of the thiolate layers from the cluster surface. The surviving Au cores then undergo a much slower energy-minimization process via structural rearrangement, stabilized in the cuboctahedral structure and protected by triphenylphosphine in the hexane environment. In response to the dramatically changed atomic structure, the character of the electronic structure of the Au clusters is converted from semiconducting to metallic. This work addresses the structure-property correlation and its strong dependence on the chemical environment for metal nanoclusters.
National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230029, P.R. China.
Yuanyuan
Y
Li
Hao
H
Cheng
Tao
T
Yao
Zhihu
Z
Sun
Wensheng
W
Yan
Yong
Y
Jiang
Yi
Y
Xie
Yongfu
Y
Sun
Yuanyuan
Y
Huang
Shoujie
S
Liu
Jing
J
Zhang
Yaning
Y
Xie
Tiandou
T
Hu
Lina
L
Yang
Ziyu
Z
Wu
Shiqiang
S
Wei
D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D006586:Hexanes / Q000737:chemistry*; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D015394:Molecular Structure; D013997:Time Factors
D006586:Hexanes; D006046:Gold