This award in the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program supports research by Professor Roger D. Kornberg at Stanford University to synthesize monodisperse ("molecular") large gold nanoparticles by a new method that provides remarkably uniform particles and determine their structures by X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy (EM). The structures of mercaptobenzoic acid-protected monolayered-protected clusters (MPCs) will be determined by x-ray diffraction. Crystals of 2 nm-diameter mercaptobenzoic acid-protected MPCs gave diffraction to 5 Angstrom resolution with improved resolution with increased crystal size. Large single crystals of 3 nm-diameter mercaptobenzoic acid-protected MPCs will be grown and their structures determined. The synthesis and structure determination will be extended to other MPCs including stable, water-soluble MPCs with tiopronin, 1-thio-a-D-glucose, and glutathione protecting monolayers. Some possible limitations of X-ray structure analysis may be overcome by cryo-electron-microscopy tomography.
Success in preparing uniform large gold nanoparticles in a range from about 1.5 to 3 nm will impact applications such as heavy atom electron microscopy and nanoelectronics.
