Probing the Absorption and Emission Transition Dipole Moment of DNA Stabilized Silver Nanoclusters

Using single molecule polarization measurements, we investigate the excitation and emission polarization characteristics of DNA stabilized silver nanoclusters (C24-AgNCs). Although small changes in the polarization generally accompany changes to the emission spectrum, the emission and excitation transition dipoles tend to be steady over time and aligned in a similar direction, when immobilized in PVA. The emission transition dipole patterns, observed for C24-AgNCs in defocused wide field imaging, match that of a single emitter. The small changes to the polarization and spectral shifting that were observed could be due to changes to the conformation of the AgNC or the DNA scaffold. Although less likely, an alternative explanation could be that several well aligned spectrally similar emitters are present within the DNA scaffold which, due to Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) processes such as energy hopping, energy transfer, and singlet-singlet annihilation, behave as a single emitter. The reported results can provide more insight in the structural and photophysical properties of DNA-stabilized AgNCs.