Stabilizing subnanometer Ag(0) nanoclusters by thiolate and diphosphine ligands and their crystal structures

The combined use of thiolate and diphosphine as surface ligands helps to stabilize subnanometer Ag(0) nanoclusters, resulting in the successful crystallization of two Ag(0)-containing nanoclusters (Ag16 and Ag32) for X-ray single crystal analysis. Both clusters have core-shell structures with Ag8(6+) and Ag22(12+) as their cores, which are not simply either fragments of face-centered cubic metals or their five-fold twinned counterparts. The clusters display UV-Vis absorption spectra consisting of molecule-like optical transitions.