Kinetically Controlled Synthesis of Highly Emissive Au₁₈SG₁₄ Clusters and Their Phase Transfer: Tips and Tricks

Glutathione (GSH) protected gold nanoclusters (Au SG NCs) have been attractive because of their novel properties such as enhanced luminescence and band gap tunability at their quantum confinement region (below ∼2 nm). Initial synthetic routes of mixed-size clusters and size-based separation techniques had latter evolved toward atomically precise nanoclusters via thermodynamic and kinetic control routes. One such exemplary synthesis taking the advantages of a kinetically controlled approach is producing highly red-emissive Au₁₈SG₁₄ NCs (where SG = thiolate of glutathione), thanks to the slow reduction kinetics provided by the mild reducing agent NaBH₃CN. Despite the developments in the direct synthesis of Au₁₈SG₁₄, several meticulous reaction conditions still need to be understood for the highly adaptable synthesis of atomically pure NCs irrespective of the laboratory conditions. Herein, we have systematically studied a series of reaction steps involved in this kinetically controlled approach starting from the role of the antisolvent, formation of precursors to Au-SG thiolates, growth of Au-SG thiolates as a function of aging time, and exploring an optimal reaction temperature to optimize the desired nucleation under slow reduction kinetics. The crucial parameters derived in our studies guide the successful and large-scale production of Au₁₈SG₁₄ at any laboratory condition. Next, we investigated the effect of pH on the NCs to study the stability and the best suitable condition for the phase transfer of Au₁₈SG₁₄ clusters. The commonly implemented method of phase transfer at the basic conditions (pH > 9) is not successful in this case. However, we developed a feasible method for the phase transfer by diluting the aqueous NC solution to enhance the negative charges on the NCs' surface by increasing the degree of dissociation at the carboxylic acid group. It is interesting to note that after the phase transfer, the Au₁₈SG₁₄-TOA NCs in toluene as well as in other organic solvents exhibited enhanced luminescence quantum yields from 9 to 3 times and increased average photoluminescence lifetimes by 1.5-2.5 times, respectively.