An overview of the properties of molecular silver nanoparticles with thiolate ligand shells will be given and compared to those of gold. Silver and gold molecular nanoparticles have distinct differences in their stability, reactivity, structure, and optics. For example, weaker bonding and greater chemical reactivity of silver tends to lead to more rapid evolution of the silver compounds into other species, which enables study of these reactions. This is typically characterized by conversion to smaller sizes, oxides, or larger particles, depending on the conditions of the reaction. The structures of gold and silver compounds are also different. For example, bonding with sulphur differs for the two metals, gold being two-coordinate and silver being three-coordinate, which leads to two distinct sets of structural motifs in the ligand shell and therefore two distinct families of compounds. Finally, although gold and silver are isoelectronic, the d electrons in silver do not interfere with light absorption in the visible part of the spectrum (which gives rise to the difference in color between silver and gold), therefore silver nanoparticles absorb light and emit light more efficiently than gold. Silver nanoparticles also have optical absorption spectra that are significantly more detailed than those of gold, which makes analysis less complex. Clearly silver offers many new opportunities for fundamental studies that will advance our understanding of this class of molecular nanomaterials.

Molecular silver nanoparticles: Chemical, optical, and structural properties

251st National Meeting (2016)

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