Professor Lee Dong-il’s research team develops a technique for enhancing the photoluminescence efficiencies of gold clusters.

Professor Lee Dong-il’s research team from the Department of Chemistry has developed a technique for enhancing the photoluminescence efficiencies of gold clusters. The team’s use of atomically precise gold clusters with well-defined core-shell structures achieved a luminescence quantum yield greater than 60% (picture 1). The results were published June 10 in the online version of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) with the title “Ultrabright Luminescence from Gold Nanoclusters: Rigidifying the Au(I)–Thiolate Shell.” According to the authors, the technology “offers great promise for applications in organic/inorganic light-emitting displays, optoelectronics, optical sensors, biomedical imaging, and diagnostics.”

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On July 29, Professor Lee and his team had a second article published in the online version of JACS, “Interconversion between Superatomic 6-Electron and 8-Electron Configurations of M@Au24(SR)18 Clusters (M = Pd, Pt).” In this research, the team showed how the doping, or adulterating, of gold nanoparticles drastically alters their electronic structures (picture 2).

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