A conical glass nanopore was first modified with ultrathin gold nanofilm via a simple and innovative chemical reduction of HAuCl4 on a surface-attached poly(L-histidine) monolayer in the presence of a mild reductant, NH2OH·HCl, followed by surface functionalization with 2-thiouracil, and exploited for the selective nonenzymatic detection of uric acid and especially for serum sample detection.

A laboratory class was developed and evaluated to illustrate the synthesis of metal nanoclusters (NCs) and to explain their photoluminescence properties for the case of silver. The described experiment employs a synthetic protocol that consists of two sequential phases in a single reaction pot: the reduction of silver ions into plasmonic silver nanoparticles (NPs) (bottom-up), followed by etching the formed silver NPs into ultrasmall atomically precise fluorescent silver NCs (top-down), Ag 29 (DHLA) 12 (DHLA: dihydrolipoic acid). UV−vis absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy were employed as a function of reaction time to confirm the development of the plasmonic character of silver NPs (reaction intermediate) and, later on, the onset of fluorescence emission of the silver NCs (final product). Collectively, this experiment was found to be simple to carry out, safe, reproducible, and cost-effective, and it achieved the intended learning outcomes. Participating students found this laboratory class suitable to be implemented into an upper-division undergraduate or graduate curriculum.

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