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Science 19 October 2007:
Vol. 318. no. 5849, pp. 430 - 433
DOI: 10.1126/science.1148624
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Reports

Structure of a Thiol Monolayer-Protected Gold Nanoparticle at 1.1 Å Resolution

Pablo D. Jadzinsky,1,2* Guillermo Calero,1* Christopher J. Ackerson,1{dagger} David A. Bushnell,1 Roger D. Kornberg1{ddagger}

Structural information on nanometer-sized gold particles has been limited, due in part to the problem of preparing homogeneous material. Here we report the crystallization and x-ray structure determination of a p-mercaptobenzoic acid (p-MBA)–protected gold nanoparticle, which comprises 102 gold atoms and 44 p-MBAs. The central gold atoms are packed in a Marks decahedron, surrounded by additional layers of gold atoms in unanticipated geometries. The p-MBAs interact not only with the gold but also with one another, forming a rigid surface layer. The particles are chiral, with the two enantiomers alternating in the crystal lattice. The discrete nature of the particle may be explained by the closing of a 58-electron shell.

1 Department of Structural Biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
2 Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} Present address: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.

{ddagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kornberg{at}stanford.edu

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