Large-scale synthesis, mechanism, and application of a luminescent copper hydride nanocluster

Elucidating the structure-property relationships of ultra-small metal nanocluster with basic nuclear is of great significance for understanding the evolution mechanism in both the structures and properties of polynuclear metal nanoclusters. In this study, an ultra-small copper hydride (CuH for short) nanocluster was simply synthesized with high yield, and the large-scale preparation was also achieved. Single crystal X-ray diffractometer (SC-XRD) analysis shows that this copper NC contains a tetrahedral Cu4 core co-capped by four PPh2Py ligands and two Cl in which the existence of the central H atom in tetrahedron was further identified experimentally and theoretically. This CuH nanocluster exhibits bright yellow emission, which is proved to be the mixture of phosphorescence and fluorescence by the sensitivity of both emission intensity and lifetime to O2. Furthermore, the temperature-dependent emission spectra and density functional theory (DFT) calculations suggest that the luminescence of CuH mainly originates from the metal-to-ligand charge transfer and cluster-centered triplet excited states. This work offers new insights into understanding the structure-property relationship of basic nuclear CuH nanocluster. Photoluminescence mechanism and selective sensing of Ag+ by Cu4H nanoclusters synthesized at a large scale.

Automated summary

In this study, the structure-property relationships of ultra-small copper hydride (CuH) nanoclusters were investigated. The results showed that the CuH nanoclusters have a tetrahedral Cu4 core and a specific ligand structure, and their luminescence mainly originates from metal-to-ligand charge transfer and cluster-centered excited states. These findings provide new insights into understanding the structure-property relationship of CuH nanoclusters.