Bare Clusters Derived from Protein Templates : Au 25 + , Au 38 + and Au 102 + Ananya

Clusters of noble metals, particularly gold, with precise nuclearity (number of atoms) and overall molecular composition continue to be a topic of intense experimental and theoretical research endeavors. These efforts aim at understanding the basic factors, such as electronic structure, atomic packing, and adsorbed layers that underlie the appearance of certain structural motifs and control the size evolution, which bridges the cluster-size domain with the bulk condensed phase. These studies are also motivated by certain properties exhibited by clusters, such as high chemical reactivity, catalytic activity and intense luminescence, which may be exploited in future technologies. While the structures of bare, as well as protected (passivated), gold clusters have been studied for close to two decades, research activities on ligated analogues have intensified significantly in recent years and crystal structures of four of them, namely, Au25(SR)18, [3e,f] Au36(SR)24, [3k] Au38(SR)24, [4e]