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. 2017 Jul 20;7:5976. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-05156-9

Figure 1.

Figure 1

(a) Synthesis routes for the preparation of Ag clusters protected by Au-thiolate complexes (Ag/Au-t, top panel) and bare Ag clusters (bottom panel). In the schematic depictions of the two systems, the green circles correspond to carboxylic end-groups and the subscript n = 7. The molecular surfactants (tetrabutylammonium, TBA and 16-mercaptohexadecanoic acid, MHDA) are omitted for clarity. (b) Absorption spectrum of Ag/Au-t and Ag clusters aliquots of the reaction medium as function of time. The insets show the experimental and simulated isotopic mass distribution patterns of [Ag3Au3(MHDA)3(TBA)2H2]+ and [Ag3(MHDA)2(TBA)4(NO3)O]+ chemical species for the protected and bare clusters, respectively.