DNA stabilized Ag-Au alloy nanoclusters and their application as sensing probes for mercury ionsElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c6ra07563k

• Main Authors: Zhang, Tianxiang, Xu, Hongwei, Xu, Shihan, Dong, Biao, Wu, Zhongyang, Zhang, Xinran, Zhang, Lihang, Song, Hongwei
• Format: Journal Article
• Published: 26.05.2016
• DOI: 10.1039/c6ra07563k

Metal nanoclusters (NCs) have attracted plenty of attention because of their unique properties and great application potentials. In this work, DNA scaffold Ag-Au alloy nanoclusters (Ag-Au ANCs) were fabricated by a one pot wet-chemical strategy and characterized by various techniques, including TEM, XPS and mass spectrometery (MS). The results indicate that owing to the strong interaction between DNA and Ag + , the silver NCs were formed first, then bundled with Au shells. In the Ag-Au ANCs, some of the Au is in an oxidized state as Au( i ), which can largely modify the optical properties of the silver NCs. The Ag-Au ANCs demonstrate tunable emissions from green to red with highly improved stability. The fluorescence of Ag-Au ANCs was explored to detect Hg 2+ in contrast to Ag NCs. The detection using Ag-Au ANCs demonstrated highly improved and excellent linearity and selectivity, which could effectively avoid the disturbance of Cu 2+ and was promising for applications. Metal nanoclusters (NCs) have attracted plenty of attention because of their unique properties and great application potentials.