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Catenane Structures of Homoleptic Thioglycolic Acid-Protected Gold Nanoclusters Evidenced by Ion Mobility-Mass Spectrometry and DFT Calculations.

Clothilde Comby-ZerbinoMartina Perić BakulićFranck BertorelleFabien ChirotPhilippe DugourdVlasta Bonačić-KouteckýRodolphe Antoine
Published in: Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) (2019)
Thiolate-protected metal nanoclusters have highly size- and structure-dependent physicochemical properties and are a promising class of nanomaterials. As a consequence, for the rationalization of their synthesis and for the design of new clusters with tailored properties, a precise characterization of their composition and structure at the atomic level is required. We report a combined ion mobility-mass spectrometry approach with density functional theory (DFT) calculations for determination of the structural and optical properties of ultra-small gold nanoclusters protected by thioglycolic acid (TGA) as ligand molecules, Au10(TGA)10. Collision cross-section (CCS) measurements are reported for two charge states. DFT optimized geometrical structures are used to compute CCSs. The comparison of the experimentally- and theoretically-determined CCSs allows concluding that such nanoclusters have catenane structures.
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