Analysis and Applications of Electronic Structure in Gold and Silver Nanoclusters
Abstract
Gold and silver nanoclusters are understood as atomically precise particles that consist of a metal core of more than 2 atoms that are usually protected and stabilized by a monolayer of organic molecules; these molecules are called ligands. In this thesis, gold and silver nanoclusters are examined through their electronic structure at the level of density functional theory. New analytical methods are developed and applied by considering the symmetry of the clusters more thoroughly than before. Gold clusters incorporating a new type type of ligand, Nheterocyclic carbenes, are studied with computational methods to explain the experimental findings. The scanning tunnelling microscope image of a large ligandprotected, atomically precise silver cluster is analyzed with the help of density functional theory and a pattern recognition algorithm that has been developed for this study. The results and the new methods both produce a wider understanding of metal nanoclusters and pave the way for research of new types of ligand-protected metal nanoclusters and their applications. Keywords: gold, silver, nanoclusters, symmetry, density functional theory, scanning tunnelling microscopy, N-heterocyclic carbenes
Main Author
Format
Theses
Doctoral thesis
Published
2019
Series
ISBN
978-951-39-7833-4
Publisher
Jyväskylän yliopisto
The permanent address of the publication
https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-7833-4Use this for linking
ISSN
2489-9003
Language
English
Published in
JYU Dissertations
Contains publications
- Artikkeli I: Juarez Mosqueda, R., Kaappa, S., Malola, S., & Häkkinen, H. (2017). Analysis of the Electronic Structure of Non-Spherical Ligand-Protected Metal Nanoclusters : The Case of a Box-Like Ag67. Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 121 (20), 10698-10705. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b10618
- Artikkeli II: Kaappa, S., Malola, S., & Häkkinen, H. (2018). Point Group Symmetry Analysis of the Electronic Structure of Bare and Protected Metal Nanocrystals. Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 122 (43), 8576-8584. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpca.8b07923
- Artikkeli III: Narouz, M. R., Osten, K. M., Unsworth, P. J., Man, R. W. Y., Salorinne, K., Takano, S., . . . Crudden, C. M. (2019). N-heterocyclic carbene-functionalized magic-number gold nanoclusters. Nature Chemistry, 11 (5), 419-425. DOI: 10.1038/s41557-019-0246-5
- Artikkeli IV: Mina R. Narouz, Shinjiro Takano, Paul A. Lummis, Tetyana I. Levchenko, Ali Nazemi, Sami Kaappa, Sami Malola, Seyedehgoonay Yousefalizadeh, Kevin G. Stamplecoskie, Hannu Häkkinen, Tatsuya Tsukuda, Cathleen Crudden. (2018). N-Heterocyclic carbene-stabilized Au13 superatom clusters. ChemRxiv. DOI: 10.26434/chemrxiv.7498748
- Artikkeli V: Zhou, Q., Kaappa, S., Malola, S., Lu, H., Guan, D., Li, Y., . . . Zheng, L. (2018). Real-space imaging with pattern recognition of a ligand-protected Ag374 nanocluster at sub-molecular resolution. Nature Communications, 9, 2948. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05372-5
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