Protein scaffolds provide unique metal coordination environments that promote biomineralization processes. It is expected that protein scaffolds can be developed to prepare inorganic nanomaterials with important biomedical and material applications. Despite many promising applications, it remains challenging to elucidate the detailed mechanisms of formation of metal nanoparticles in protein env...

Direct laser writing has been utilized to fabricate highly photostable fluorescent nanocluster microstructures in an organic polymer poly(methacrylic acid), where the carboxyl functional group is reported to play a vital role in nanocluster stabilization. In this Letter, we demonstrate that not only the polymer containing the carboxyl functional group, but also the polymer comprising the hydrox...

Despite the great advances in synthesis and structural determination of atomically precise, thiolate-protected metal nanoclusters, our understanding of the driving forces for their colloidal stabilization is very limited. Currently there is a lack of models able to describe the thermodynamic stability of these 'magic-number' colloidal nanoclusters as a function of their atomic-level structural ...

In this work, we synthesized a trypsin-stabilized fluorescent gold nanocluster. It was found that sulfide interacted with the nanocluster, which could result in significant fluorescence quenching. With this quenching effect, a fluorescence sulfide sensor was developed. This sensor responded linearly to sulfide in the range of 50 nM to 8 μM, and was capable of detecting sulfide as low as 5.5 nM....

In this paper we report results on the synthesis and magnetic properties of L10 FePt nanocomposite fi lms. Three fabrication methods have been developed to produce high-anisptropy FePt fi lms: non-epitaxial growth of (0 0 1)-oriented FePt:X (X=Ag, C) composite fi lms that might be used for perpendicular media; monodispersed FePt(CFx) core–shell nanocluster-assembled fi lms grown with a gas-aggr...

Surface organic ligands are critical for the formation and properties of atomically precise metal nanoclusters. In contrast to the conventionally used protective ligands such as thiolates and phosphines, thiacalix[4]arene has been used in the synthesis of a silver nanocluster, [Ag35(H2L)2(L)(C≡CBu(t))16](SbF6)3, (H4L, p-tert-butylthiacalix[4]-arene). This is the first structurally determined ca...

Highly ordered Ag nanocluster structures have been grown on pre-patterned amorphous SiO(2) surfaces by oblique angle physical vapor deposition at room temperature. Despite the small undulation of the rippled surface, the stripe-like Ag nanoclusters are very pronounced, reproducible and well separated. Computer modeling of the growth has been performed with a lattice-based kinetic Monte Carlo (K...

The structure of the recently synthesized mercaptosuccinic acid-protected Au6Ag7(SR)10 cluster has been elucidated by a DFT approach, following an isoelectronic substitution of seven Au atoms by Ag atoms on the [Au13(SR)10](+) cluster. After a systematic search for the lowest-energy isomers, it is demonstrated that its structure comprises one octahedral-like Ag6 core covered by two monoatomic d...

Reaction of Cd(OAc)2·2H2O and selenourea in primary-amine/secondary-amine cosolvent mixtures affords crystalline CdSe quantum platelets at room temperature. Their crystallinity is established by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and their sharp extinction and photoluminescence spectra. Reaction monitoring establishes the magic-size nanoclu...