Heavily doped Au25-xAgx(SC6H11)18(-) nanoclusters: silver goes from the core to the surface.

ABSTRACT

We report a method for heavy doping of the Au25(SR)18 nanocluster (where R = C6H11) with silver through the Ag(I)-thiolate complex induced size/structure transformation of Au23(SR)16(-) into Au25-xAgx(SR)18(-). X-ray crystallographic analysis revealed that Ag dopants are distributed not only in the icosahedral core but also in the surface staple motifs; the latter was not achieved in earlier studies of alloy Au25-xAgx nanoclusters.