Alkynyl-Stabilized Superatomic Silver Clusters Showing Circularly Polarized Luminescence

Miao-Miao Zhang; Xi-Yan Dong; Zhao-Yang Wang; Xi-Ming Luo; Jia-Hong Huang; Shuang-Quan Zang; Thomas C W Mak

doi:10.1021/jacs.1c02098

Alkynyl-Stabilized Superatomic Silver Clusters Showing Circularly Polarized Luminescence

J Am Chem Soc. 2021 Apr 28;143(16):6048-6053. doi: 10.1021/jacs.1c02098. Epub 2021 Apr 19.

Authors

Miao-Miao Zhang¹, Xi-Yan Dong^{1

2}, Zhao-Yang Wang¹, Xi-Ming Luo¹, Jia-Hong Huang¹, Shuang-Quan Zang¹, Thomas C W Mak^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Henan Key Laboratory of Crystalline Molecular Functional Materials, Henan International Joint Laboratory of Tumor Theranostical Cluster Materials, Green Catalysis Center, and College of Chemistry, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China.
² College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo 454000, China.
³ Department of Chemistry, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China.

PMID: 33871986
DOI: 10.1021/jacs.1c02098

Abstract

We report a new enantiomeric pair of superatomic silver clusters, R/S-Ag₁₇, prepared from chiral alkynyl ligands. R-Ag₁₇ and S-Ag₁₇ possess C₃ symmetry and emit near-infrared (NIR) light with a quantum yield (QY) of 8.0% under ambient condition as well as NIR circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) as a result of the chirality of the excited states. Both experiments and theoretical calculations indicate for the first time that the CPL originates from transitions between superatomic 1P_z (along the C₃ axis) and 1S orbitals. This work opens a new avenue for CPL-active metal nanoclusters by utilizing chiral alkynyl ligands and enlightens the chirality transfer from chiral protecting ligands to superatomic states in metal clusters.