Silver cluster - DNA complexes are optical chromophores, and pairs of these conjugates can be toggled from fluorescently dim to bright states using DNA hybridization. We highlight spectral and structural differences for a specific cluster pairs. We discuss a cluster with low emission and violet absorption that forms a compact structure with single-stranded oligonucleotides and its counterpart with blue absorption and strong green emission. This cluster develops with a single-stranded/duplex DNA construct and is favored by low silver concentrations with &lt;8 Ag+:DNA, an oxygen atmosphere, and neutral pH. The resulting cluster displays key signatures of a molecular metal with well-defined absorption/emission bands at 490/550 nm and with a fluorescence quantum yield of 15% and lifetime of 2.4 ns. The silver cluster is identified as Ag<sub>10</sub><sup>6+</sup> using two modes of mass spectrometry and elemental analysis. Our key finding is that it adopts a low-dimensional shape, as determined from a Ag K-edge extended X-ray absorption fine structure analysis. We discuss recent findings related to the spectra and structure of these complexes.

DNA-templated silver clusters

256th National Meeting (2018)

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