Salassa G, Bürgi T
Department of Physical Chemistry, University of Geneva, 30 Quai Ernest-Ansermet, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
Nanoscale Horiz. 2018 Sep 1;3(5):457-463. doi: 10.1039/c8nh00058a. Epub 2018 May 9.
Monolayer protected metal clusters are currently in the focus of interest both for fundamental reasons and for their use in possible applications. In the past two decades the interest was mainly focused on the evolution of the structrue and properties as the clusters grow in size. The field profited tremednously from mass spectrometry and X-ray structure analysis. For future applications of monolayer protected clusters other properties like the interaction of the clusters with molecules will become important. Also, it has been realized more recently that these monolayer protected clusters are rather dynamic, which calls for techniques able to address this property. By discussing selected examples we demonstrate the power of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to study the structure and the dynamics of clusters and their interacion with molecules (sensing). NMR spectroscopy is an abundant technique and has become very sophisticated. Future work in the field of monolayer protected clusters may greatly profit from this. We believe that NMR spectroscopy, although not yet used much in the field of monolayer protected clusters, has the potential to become a key technique complementary to mass spectrometry and X-ray structure determination.
单分子层保护的金属簇目前因其基本原理以及在可能应用中的用途而成为人们关注的焦点。在过去二十年中，兴趣主要集中在随着簇尺寸的增长其结构和性质的演变上。该领域从质谱分析和X射线结构分析中受益匪浅。对于单分子层保护簇的未来应用，其他性质如簇与分子的相互作用将变得重要。此外，最近人们已经认识到这些单分子层保护簇相当动态，这就需要能够研究这种性质的技术。通过讨论选定的例子，我们展示了核磁共振（NMR）光谱在研究簇的结构和动力学及其与分子相互作用（传感）方面的作用。NMR光谱是一种丰富的技术，并且已经变得非常成熟。单分子层保护簇领域的未来工作可能会从中大大受益。我们相信，NMR光谱虽然在单分子层保护簇领域尚未得到广泛应用，但有潜力成为与质谱分析和X射线结构测定互补的关键技术。
