Controllable syntheses of Au nanoclusters (NCs) with different nuclearities are of great significance due to the kernel-dependent physicochemical properties. Herein, two pairs of enantiomeric Au NCs [Au19(R/S-BINAP)4(PhC≡C)Cl4] (SD/Au19) and [Au11(R/S-BINAP)4(PhC≡C)2]·Cl (SD/Au11), both with atropos (rigid axial chirality) diphosphine BINAP (2,2'-bis(diphenylphosphino)-1,1'-binaphthalene) as the predominant organic ligands, were controllably synthesized through precursor engineering. The former was obtained by direct reduction of HAuCl4·4H2O, while the latter was obtained by reduction of [Au(SMe2)Cl] instead. Intriguingly, the kernel of SD/Au19 contains an Au7 pentagonal bipyramid capped by two boat-like Au6 rings, which represents another type of Au19 kernel, making SD/Au19 a good candidate for comparative study with other Au19 NCs to get more insight into the distinct structural evolution of phosphine-protected Au NCs. Despite the previous chiroptical studies on some other chiral undecagold NCs, the successful attainment of the X-ray crystal structures for SD/Au11 not only provides a step forward toward better correlating the chiroptical activities with their structural details but also reveals that even the auxiliary protecting ligands also play a nontrivial role in tuning the geometrical structures of the metal NCs. The chiroptical activities of both SD/Au19 and SD/Au11 were found to originate from the chiral ligands and core distortions; the extended π-electron systems in the BINAP ligands have proved to positively contribute to the electronic absorptions and thus disturb the corresponding circular dichroism (CD) responses.
Keywords: BINAP-protected; DFT calculation; chiral gold nanoclusters; electrospray ionization mass spectrometry; precursor engineering.