Surface chemistry of cadmium sulfide magic-sized clusters: a window into ligand-nanoparticle interactions

Douglas R Nevers; Curtis B Williamson; Tobias Hanrath; Richard D Robinson

doi:10.1039/c6cc09549f

Surface chemistry of cadmium sulfide magic-sized clusters: a window into ligand-nanoparticle interactions

Chem Commun (Camb). 2017 Mar 2;53(19):2866-2869. doi: 10.1039/c6cc09549f.

Authors

Douglas R Nevers¹, Curtis B Williamson¹, Tobias Hanrath¹, Richard D Robinson²

Affiliations

¹ Robert F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA. th358@cornell.edu.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA. rdr82@cornell.edu.

PMID: 28218315
DOI: 10.1039/c6cc09549f

Abstract

Optoelectronic properties of nanoparticles are intimately coupled to the complex physiochemical interplay between the inorganic core and the organic ligand shell. Magic-sized clusters, which are predominately surface atoms, provide a promising avenue to clarify these critical surface interactions. Whereas these interactions impact the surface of both nanoparticles and magic-sized clusters, we show here that only clusters manifest a shift in the excitonic peak by up to 0.4 eV upon solvent or ligand treatment. These results highlight the utility of the clusters as a probe of ligand-surface interactions.