The collaboration between the Cossairt and Li groups at UW boasts a new publication in The Journal of the American Chemical Society. For the first time the crystallographic structure of a “magic-sized” nanocluster, an important class of intermediates at the interface of small molecules and quantum dots, has been resolved.
The obtained structure deviates from that of known crystal phases and possesses a non-stoichiometric, charged core. The measured absorption spectrum shows an asymmetric line shape and thanks to a combination of computational and experimental evidence we suggest that the spectral linewidth is a result of multiple, discrete electronic transitions that couple to vibrations of the the nanocrystal lattice. This publication can be found online here.