A modification of Au25(pMBA)18 that incorporates one diglyme ligand as a direct synthetic product is reported. Notably the expected statistical production of clusters containing other ligand stoichiometries is not observed. This Au25(pMBA)17diglyme product is characterized by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) and optical spectroscopy. Thiolate for thiolate ligand exchange proceeds on this cluster, whereas thiolate for diglyme ligand exchange does not.
Keywords: ligand exchange; metal nanoclusters; surface chemistry.