Thiolate-Protected Au25 Superatoms as Building Blocks: Dimers and Crystals

A particularly stable thiolate-protected gold nanocluster, Au-25(SR)(18), was structurally characterized from X-ray crystallography in 2008, and concomitantly its electronic and optical properties were analyzed via density functional theory. The robust geometry and a well-understood electronic structure of this cluster motivate explorations of properties of extended systems made out of Au-25(SR)(18) building blocks. As a first step in this direction, we analyze here structural, vibrational, electronic, and optical properties of the Au-25 cluster anion as it was observed in the crystalline environment and predict properties of cluster dimers, where the Au-25 units are linked together. via an aromatic dithiolate linker. We show that properties of each Au-25 unit of the dimer can be quite independently modified from the other by doping with a nonmagnetic (Pd) or magnetic (Mn) metal atom. We anticipate that material systems with interesting properties could be made from these building blocks, provided that a suitable chemistry for their controlled linking can be found.