Duan Wenqiang, Zhu Chen, Kang Xi, Zhu Manzhou
Department of Chemistry and Centre for Atomic Engineering of Advanced Materials, Key Laboratory of Structure and Functional Regulation of Hybrid Materials of Ministry of Education, Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Chemistry for Inorganic/Organic Hybrid Functionalized Materials, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, Anhui, China.
J Phys Chem Lett. 2025 Apr 24;16(16):4090-4096. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.5c00699. Epub 2025 Apr 17.
An in-depth understanding of the structural symmetry of nanoclusters benefits the investigation of structure-property correlations. In this study, we accomplished the symmetry breaking of the surface structures of a highly symmetrical Ag nanocluster. The Ag nanocluster exhibited a highly axisymmetry, while this nanocluster underwent structural symmetry breaking in the presence of large-sized counterions as an asymmetric factor, giving rise to an Ag nanocluster with a bare surface and a symmetric overall structure. Despite both the Ag and Ag nanoclusters exhibiting comparably electronic structures, the highly symmetrical Ag nanocluster displayed a significantly higher photoluminescence intensity compared to the asymmetrical Ag nanocluster, which has been rationalized from the perspective of their structures and symmetry. Overall, this study presents a novel silver cluster pair with controllably symmetrical or asymmetrical surface structures, allowing for an atomic-level understanding of how structural symmetry influences the photoluminescence of metal nanoclusters.
深入了解纳米团簇的结构对称性有助于研究结构-性质的相关性。在本研究中，我们实现了高度对称的银纳米团簇表面结构的对称性破缺。该银纳米团簇呈现出高度轴对称性，而在作为不对称因素的大尺寸抗衡离子存在下，此纳米团簇发生了结构对称性破缺，产生了具有裸露表面和不对称整体结构的银纳米团簇。尽管Ag和银纳米团簇表现出相当的电子结构，但与不对称银纳米团簇相比，高度对称的银纳米团簇显示出明显更高的光致发光强度，这已从它们的结构和对称性角度得到了合理的解释。总体而言，本研究提出了一种具有可控对称或不对称表面结构的新型银团簇对，从而能够在原子水平上理解结构对称性如何影响金属纳米团簇的光致发光。
