Unravelling the Structure of a Medium‐Sized Metalloid Gold Nanocluster and its Filming Property

Abstract

Unravelling the structure of thiolated metalloid gold nanoclusters in the medium‐sized range by single crystal X‐ray crystallography (SCXC) is challenging. Herein, we successfully synthesized a novel Au67(SR)35 nanocluster, and unravelled its single crystal structure by SCXC, which features a mix‐structured Au48 kernel protected by one Au4(SR)5 staple and fifteen Au(SR)2 staples. Unprecedentedly, this structure can be thermally induced to aggregate into larger nanoparticles and self‐deposit to form a gold nanoparticles film onto the walls of a vial or other substrates such as quartz, mica or ceramic, which can be developed into a facile, substrate‐universal and scalable filming method. The film exhibits high sensitivity, uniformity and recyclability as a surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate and can be applied for detecting multiple organic pollutants.