Abstract
A multifunctional polymer ligand, containing thiol, thioether, and ester functional groups, is designed and used to prepare intense blue fluorescent gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) with a diameter of similar to 1.2 nm and high quantum yield (QY) of 24.3% in organic media without using additional phase-transfer reagents. The size and QY of AuNCs can be fairly controlled by adjusting molecular weight (M-n) and concentration of multifunctional polymer ligand. The AuNCs retain their fluorescence in various organic solvents and are fairly stable for several months. The same polymer can also be used to prepare silver and platinum nanoclusters (AgNCs and PtNCs), which are not very fluorescent. All of these metal nanoclusters (MNCs) have been characterized thoroughly using TEM, XPS, MALDI-TOF, and other common optical techniques. Apart from the diverse applications of silver and platinum NCs, the highly fluorescent AuNCs may have potential applications in thermal gradient optical imaging, single molecule optoelectronics, sensors and optical components of the detectors.