Symmetry breaking in ligand-protected gold clusters probed by nonlinear optics

Nick Van Steerteghem, Stijn Van Cleuvenbergen, Steven Deckers, Chanaka Kumara, Amala Dass, Hannu Häkkinen, Koen Clays, Thierry Verbiest, Stefan Knoppe

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

30 Scopus citations

Abstract

The first hyperpolarizabilities of [Au25(SR)18]-1/0 and Au38(SR)24 clusters were determined by Hyper-Rayleigh Scattering. A strong dependence on the molecular symmetry was observed, and we explore two strategies to destroy the center of inversion in [Au25(SR)18]-1/0, protection by chiral ligands and alloying of the cluster with silver. This may open new avenues to applications of Au : SR clusters in second-order nonlinear optics.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)12123-12127
Number of pages5
JournalNanoscale
Volume8
Issue number24
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 28 2016
Externally publishedYes

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from KU Leuven, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD, S. K.), the Funds for Scientific Research Flanders (FWO, N. V. S., S. V. C., S. K.), the Hercules Foundation (T. V.), the Academy of Finland (H. H.), and the University of Mississippi (C. K., A. D.). All computations were carried out at CSC The IT Center for Science in Espoo (Finland).

FundersFunder number
University of Mississippi
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst
Academy of Finland
Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique - FNRS
Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
KU Leuven
Herculesstichting

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