Chemistry in Pictures: Technicolor nanoclusters

At first glance, you wouldn’t think that each of these flasks originally contained a similar substance, a solution of gold nanoclusters. The various colors arose when Julie P. Vanegas, a postdoc in Brian S. Mitchell’s group at Tulane University, added a unique ligand to each flask. After each ligand attached to the nanoclusters in the flask, Vanegas analyzed the clusters and see if they had any sort of surface defect, which can be relevant when using the clusters in sensors, for example. Each ligand coated the clusters in solution and caused the nanoclusters to fluoresce a different color under ultraviolet light. From left to right, the ligands were cysteine, l-acetylcysteine, adenosine, and glutathione.

Submitted by Julie P. Vanegas/Hegmann research group/Liquid Crystal & Nanocomposite Laboratory at the Advanced Materials & Liquid Crystal Institute

Do science. Take pictures. Win money. Enter our photo contest here.

Click here to see more Chemistry in Pictures.