Long-lived charge-separated states in ligand-stabilized silver clusters

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 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/29181

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UMBC Physics Department

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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6370-8765

Date

2012-07-09

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journal articles
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Citation of Original Publication

Pelton, Matthew, Yun Tang, Osman M. Bakr, and Francesco Stellacci. “Long-Lived Charge-Separated States in Ligand-Stabilized Silver Clusters.” Journal of the American Chemical Society 134, no. 29 (July 25, 2012): 11856–59. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja303682m.

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This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
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Abstract

Recently developed synthesis methods allow for the production of atomically monodisperse clusters of silver atoms stabilized in solution by aromatic thiol ligands, which exhibit intense absorption peaks throughout the visible and near-IR spectral regions. Here we investigated the time-dependent optical properties of these clusters. We observed two kinetic processes following ultrafast laser excitation of any of the absorption peaks: a rapid decay, with a time constant of 1 ps or less, and a slow decay, with a time constant that can be longer than 300 ns. Both time constants decrease as the polarity of the solvent increases, indicating that the two processes correspond to the formation and recombination, respectively, of a charge-separated state. The long lifetime of this state and the broad optical absorption spectrum mean that the ligand-stabilized silver clusters are promising materials for solar energy harvesting.