Synthesis of silica-stabilized Ag44 clusters aided by a designed mercaptosilane ligand

Jinyu Yang; Shoudong Xie; Hui Zhang; Wenhao Xu; Angang Dong; Yun Tang

doi:10.1039/d2cc02505a

Synthesis of silica-stabilized Ag₄₄ clusters aided by a designed mercaptosilane ligand

Chem Commun (Camb). 2022 Jun 14;58(48):6849-6852. doi: 10.1039/d2cc02505a.

Authors

Jinyu Yang¹, Shoudong Xie¹, Hui Zhang¹, Wenhao Xu¹, Angang Dong¹, Yun Tang¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, iChEM (Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China. agdong@fudan.edu.cn.

PMID: 35616577
DOI: 10.1039/d2cc02505a

Abstract

The novel and precise design of both a microscopic ligand and macroscopic structure has been demonstrated to improve the stability and potential optical applications of Ag₄₄ clusters. The ligand with designed silane substituents on its thiophenol enabled the synthesized [Ag₄₄(SPhSi(OEt)₃)₃₀](PPh₄)₄ clusters to maintain UV-vis absorption for 13 h when heated at 60 °C in air and be readily coated with silica shells via a one-pot reverse microemulsion method. This composite structure overcomes the issue that non-luminescent Ag₄₄ clusters cannot be applied in photothermal and photoacoustic imaging due to their instability.