Excited-State Dynamics in a DNA-Stabilized Ag16 Cluster with Near-Infrared Emission

Junsheng Chen, Ajeet Kumar, Cecilia Cerretani, Tom Vosch, Donatas Zigmantas, Erling Thyrhaug*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Due to desirable optical properties, such as efficient luminescence and large Stokes shift, DNA-templated silver nanoclusters (DNA-AgNCs) have received significant attention over the past decade. Nevertheless, the excited-state dynamics of these systems are poorly understood, as studies of the processes ultimately leading to a fluorescent state are scarce. Here we investigate the early time relaxation dynamics of a 16-atom silver cluster (DNA-Ag16NC) featuring NIR emission in combination with an unusually large Stokes shift of over 5000 cm-1. We follow the photoinduced dynamics of DNA-Ag16NC on time ranges from tens of femtoseconds to nanoseconds using a combination of ultrafast optical spectroscopies, and extract a kinetic model to clarify the physical picture of the photoinduced dynamics. We expect the obtained model to contribute to guiding research efforts toward elucidating the electronic structure and dynamics of these novel objects and their potential applications in fluorescence-based labeling, imaging, and sensing.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Physical Chemistry Letters
Volume14
Issue number17
Pages (from-to)4078-4083
Number of pages6
ISSN1948-7185
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
T.V. and C.C. acknowledge funding from the Villum Foundation (VKR023115) and the Independent Research Fund Denmark (0136-00024B). D.Z. and E.T. acknowledge support from the Swedish Research Council. J.C. acknowledges support from the Lundbeck Foundation (Grant No. R303-2018-3237).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.

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