A synchronous nucleation and passivation strategy for controllable synthesis of Au36(PA)24: unveiling the formation process and the role of Au22(PA)18 intermediate

摘要

Despite the recent progress on controllable synthesis of alkynyl-protected Au nanoclusters,the effective synthetic means are very limited and the cluster formation process still remains puzzling.Here,we develop a novel synchronous nucleation and passivation strategy to fabricate Au36(PA)24(PA=phenylacetylenyl) nanoclusters with high yield.In Au36(PA)24formation process,Au22(PA)18as key intermediate was identified.Meanwhile,Au22(PA)18can be synthesized under a low amount of reductant,and by employing more reductants,Au22(PA)18can turn into Au36(PA)24eventually.Moreover,the structure evolution from Au22(PA)18to Au36(PA)24is proposed,where four Au13cuboctahedra can yield one Au28kernel.Finally,the ratiocination is verified by the good accordance between the predicted intermediate/product ratio and the experimental value.This study not only offers a novel synthetic strategy,but also sheds light on understanding the structural evolution process of alkynyl-protected Au nanoclusters at atomic level.