Interaction of benzene thiol and thiolate with small gold clusters

We studied the interaction between benzene thiol and thiolate molecules, and gold clusters made of 1 to 3 atoms, by means of ab initio density functional theory in the local density approximation. We find that the thiolate is energetically more stable than the thiol, however the process of detachment of H from the thiol appears to be possibly mediated by the intermediate step of H chemisorption on Au. Cleavage of the S-H bond is accompanied by a 90 degrees rotation of the molecule around the S-Au bond, showing a strong steric specificity. Such a rotation is induced by the relative energy shift of the S atom p orbitals with respect to the benzene pi ring and the Au d orbitals. By analyzing the correlation of the bond energy, bond lengths, and HOMO-LUMO gap with the number of S-Au bonds, we find that the thiolate S atom appears to prefer a low-coordination condition on Au clusters.