Metal nanoparticles (NPs) display unique electronic properties due to spatial confinement and a large fraction of surface atoms. With surface atoms accounting for much of the nanoparticle volume, it is reasonable to believe that the ligands attached to those surface atoms will exert control over the electronic properties of the particles. In this project, conduction electron spin resonance (CESR) spectroscopy will be utilized to study the changes in the electronic structure as a result of changes in the ligand shell. It has been established with gold NPs and thiolate ligands that the Fermi level can be adjusted by modest changes in the ligand shell. Element specific information regarding the origin of these changes can be determined through hyperfine interactions. However, hyperfine interactions are unable to be resolved in the gold-thiolate systems due to the short-excited state lifetime that results from strong spin-orbit coupling. As such, copper, silver, and palladium NPs are being investigated as potential candidates for pulse ESR experiments, which can elucidate the hyperfine interactions.

Probing the electronic structure of small metallic nanoparticles using conduction electron spin resonance

255th National Meeting (2018)

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