Chirality and Electronic Structure of the Thiolate-Protected Au38 Nanocluster

Structural, electronic, and optical properties of the thiolate-protected Au(38)(SR)(24) cluster are studied by density-functional theory computations (R = CH(3) and R = C(6)H(13)) and by powder X-ray crystallography (R = C(12)H(25)). A low-energy structure which can be written as Au(23)@(Au(SR)(2))(3)(Au(2)(SR)(3))(6) having a bi-icosahedral core and a chiral arrangement of the protecting gold-thiolate Au(x)(SR)(y) units yields an excellent match between the computed (for R = C(6)H(13)) and measured (for R = C(12)H(25)) powder X-ray diffraction function. We interpret in detail the electronic structure of the Au(23) core by using a particle-in-a-cylinder model. Although the alkane thiolate ligands are achiral, the chiral structure of the ligand layer yields strong circular dichroism (CD) in the excitations below 2.2 eV for Au(38)(SCH(3))(24). Our calculated CD spectrum is in quantitative agreement with the previously measured low-energy CD signal of glutathione-protected Au(38)(SG)(24). Our study demonstrates a new mechanism for the strong chiral response of thiolate-protected gold clusters with achiral metal cores and ligands.