Separation of Phenylethanethiolate-protected Gold-Silver 38-atom Alloy Clusters at Atomic Precision by Reversed-phase High-performance Liquid Chromatography

Metal alloys exhibit functionalities unlike those of single metals. Such alloying has drawn considerable research interest, particularly for nanoscale particles (metal clusters/nanoparticles), from the viewpoint of creating new functional nanomaterials. Although studying the precise alloy clusters is indispensable to understand the correlation between the structures and physical/chemical properties of alloy clusters, there are still many alloy clusters that cannot be synthesized with atomic precision, as represented by gold-silver alloy clusters. In this study, we established a method to separate phenylethanethiolate-protected 38-atom gold–silver alloy clusters ([Au38−xAgx(SC2H4Ph)24]0) according to their chemical composition. This method revealed how the electronic structure of [Au38−xAgx(SC2H4Ph)24]0 varies depending on the number of the substituted Ag atoms at atomic precision. This study also revealed that the geometrical and electronic structures of the synthesized [Au38−xAgx(SC2H4Ph)24]0 are influenced by the synthesis method.