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Symmetry breaking in ligand-protected gold clusters probed by nonlinear optics
Nick Van Steerteghem1, Stijn Van Cleuvenbergen1, Steven Deckers1
1Molecular Imaging and Photonics, Department of Chemistry, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium. thierry.verbiest@fys.kuleuven.be stefan.knoppe@chem.kuleuven.be.
Abstract:
The first hyperpolarizabilities of [Au25(SR)18](-1/0) and Au38(SR)24 clusters were determined by Hyper-Rayleigh Scattering. A strong dependence on the molecular symmetry was observed, and we explore two strategies to destroy the center of inversion in [Au25(SR)18](-1/0), protection by chiral ligands and alloying of the cluster with silver. This may open new avenues to applications of Au : SR clusters in second-order nonlinear optics.

