Noble Metal Clusters: Applications in Energy, Environment, and Biology

Abstract

Sub‐nanometer‐sized metal clusters, having dimensions between metal atoms and nanoparticles, have attracted tremendous attention in the recent past due to their unique physical and chemical properties. As properties of such materials depend strongly on size, development of synthetic routes that allows precise tuning of the cluster cores with high monodispersity and purity is an area of intense research. Such materials are also interesting owing to their wide variety of applications. Novel sensing strategies based on these materials are emerging. Owing to their extremely small size, low toxicity, and biocompatibility, they are widely studied for biomedical applications. Primary focus of this review is to provide an account of the recent advances in their applications in areas such as environment, energy, and biology. With further experimental and theoretical advances aimed at understanding their novel properties and solving challenges in their synthesis, an almost unlimited field of applications can be foreseen.

Simple and Efficient Separation of Atomically Precise Noble Metal Clusters

“…[1][2][3] Most of the reports on such clusters are concerned with gold but a few analogues of silver and copper have also appeared in the literature. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Molecules such as Au25SR18, [11][12][13] Au38SR24 14 and Au144SR60 15 are some of the most stable species in this family of materials.…”

Switching a Nanocluster Core from Hollow to Nonhollow

“…8 NCs gained significant attention due to their unique optical [9][10][11][12][13] and physicochemical 1,14 properties as well as intriguing electronic and redox behavior 15,16 . These characteristics made NCs a new class of functional materials for applications in catalysis, 17,18 sensing, 19 biology, 3,6 energy, 20 and environment 21 .…”

“…Control over size and structure of atomically precise nanoparticles [1][2][3][4] (NPs) has long been a subject of great interest. These compositionally precise NPs are usually designated by their distinct chemical formula similar to molecules, unlike average diameters that are used for describing the size of plasmonic NPs.…”

Simulation of Collision Stage of Evolution of Bipartite Bimetal Clusters under Impact of Low-Energy Argon Dimers

“…При этом металлические кластеры представляют особый интерес как для фундаментальных научных исследований [2,3], так и для непосредственного технологического применения [4,5]. Объектами изучения являются электрические, оптические, магнитные и химические свойства, которые значи-тельно отличаются от свойств соответствующего объёмного веще-ства и резко меняются при незначительных изменениях размеров кластера [6].…”