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Synthesis and Photophysical Properties of Light‐Harvesting Gold Nanoclusters Fully Functionalized with Antenna Chromophores
Author(s) -
Pyo Kyunglim,
Xu Hongmei,
Han Sang Myeong,
Saxena Shivi,
Yoon Sook Young,
Wiederrecht Gary,
Ramakrishna Guda,
Lee Dongil
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.202004836
Subject(s) - nanoclusters , chromophore , materials science , photoluminescence , photochemistry , excimer , pyrene , monomer , dendrimer , luminescence , antenna effect , absorption (acoustics) , femtosecond , optoelectronics , nanotechnology , fluorescence , polymer , chemistry , polymer chemistry , optics , organic chemistry , laser , composite material , physics
The development of efficient light‐harvesting systems is important to understand the key aspects of solar‐energy conversion processes and to utilize them in various photonic applications. Here, atomically well‐defined gold nanoclusters are reported as a new platform to fabricate artificial light‐harvesting systems. An efficient amide coupling method is developed to synthesize water‐soluble Au 22 clusters fully protected with pyrene chromophores by taking advantage of their facile phase‐transfer reaction. The synthesized Au 22 clusters with densely packed 18 pyrene chromophores (Au 22 –PyB 18 ) exhibit triple‐emission in blue, green, and red wavelength regions arising respectively from pyrene monomer, pyrene excimer, and Au 22 emission, producing bright white light emission together. The photoluminescence of Au 22 is enhanced by more than tenfold, demonstrating that pyrenes at the periphery efficiently channel the absorbed energy to the luminescent Au 22 at the center. A combination of femtosecond transient absorption and anisotropy measurements of Au 22 –PyB 18 explicitly reveals three main decay components of 220 fs, 3.5 ps, and 160 ps that can be assigned to energy migration between pyrenes and energy transfer processes from pyrene monomer and excimer to the central Au 22 , respectively.