Lighting Up Copper Sulfide Nanoclusters via Thioacetamide Introduction

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Controllable synthesis and luminescent properties of atomically precise copper sulfide nanoclusters (Cu-S NCs) remain underexplored.
• Novel synthetic strategies are needed to expand the family of well-defined Cu-S NCs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To report the synthesis and structural characterization of two new Cu-S NCs.
• To investigate the luminescent properties of the synthesized Cu-S NCs.
• To explore the relationship between structure and luminescence in Cu-S NCs.

Main Methods:

• Synthesis of two novel Cu-S NCs: [Cu20S(AT)8(dppm)4(H)8](ClO4)2 (Cu20-H) and [Cu20S3(AT)12(dppm)2](ClO4)2 (Cu20-S).
• Structural analysis using X-ray crystallography.
• Photoluminescence spectroscopy to determine optical properties like quantum yield and lifetime.

Main Results:

• Successfully synthesized and characterized two distinct Cu-S NCs with unique structures and surface ligand arrangements.
• Cu20-S was prepared using a novel sulfide-release approach, the first of its kind for Cu-S NCs.
• Cu20-H is chiral with D2 symmetry and nearly nonemissive.
• Cu20-S exhibits orange luminescence with a high photoluminescence quantum yield (23.54%) and long lifetime (10.08 μs) due to its rigid, polar structure.

Conclusions:

• This work presents a novel method for constructing Cu-S NCs, expanding the known copper cluster family.
• The findings provide valuable insights into structure-property relationships, particularly linking structural rigidity and polarity to enhanced luminescence in Cu-S NCs.
• The developed sulfide-release approach offers a new pathway for synthesizing functionalized Cu-S NCs.