Silvery fullerene in Ag 102 nanosaucer.

Despite the discovery of a series of fullerenes and a handful of noncarbon clusters with the typical topology of I h -C 60 , the smallest fullerene with a large degree of curvature, C 20 , and its other-element counterparts are difficult to isolate experimentally. In coinage metal nanoclusters (NCs), the first all-gold fullerene, Au 32 , was discovered after a long-lasting pursuit, but the isolation of similar silvery fullerene structures is still challenging. Herein, we report a flying saucer-shaped 102-nuclei silver NC ( Ag102 ) with a silvery fullerene kernel of Ag 32 , which is embraced by a robust cyclic anionic passivation layer of (KPO 4 ) 10 . This Ag 32 kernel can be viewed as a non-centered icosahedron Ag 12 encaged into a dodecahedron Ag 20 , forming the silvery fullerene of Ag 12 @Ag 20 . The anionic layer (KPO 4 ) 10 is located at the interlayer between the Ag 32 kernel and Ag 70 shell, passivating the Ag 32 silvery fullerene and templating the Ag 70 shell. The t BuPhS - and CF 3 COO - ligands on the silver shell show a regioselective arrangement with the 60 t BuPhS - ligands as expanders covering the upper and lower of the flying saucer and 10 CF 3 COO - as terminators neatly encircling the edges of the structure. In addition, Ag102 shows excellent photothermal conversion efficiency ( η ) from the visible to near-infrared region ( η  = 67.1% ± 0.9% at 450 nm, 60.9% ± 0.9% at 660 nm and 50.2% ± 0.5% at 808 nm), rendering it a promising material for photothermal converters and potential application in remote laser ignition. This work not only captures silver kernels with the topology of the smallest fullerene C 20 , but also provides a pathway for incorporating alkali metal (M) into coinage metal NCs via M-oxoanions.