One-pot synthesis red emission of photoluminescent silane capped gold nanoclusters

Abstract

The CdSe-based quantum dots (QDs) have been applied to light-conversion nano-phosphors due to tunable emission and pure colors. However, these cadmium-containing QDs was strongly toxic and synthesized in a hazardous solvent. In addition, conventional QD nano-phosphors with a small Stokes shift suffered from reabsorption losses and aggregation-induced photoluminescence (PL) quenching in the solid state. Therefore, there is a need to develop nanophosphors with a large Stokes shift. Here, we demonstrate one-pot synthesis of gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) using 3- aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APS) and glutathione as protection ligand with a large Stokes shift. The gold nanoclusters with a large Stokes shift can mitigate the aggregation-induced PL quenching and reabsorption losses, which would be potential candidates for green nano-phosphors.