Silver nanoclusters stabilized by 5′-CCCGGAGAAG-3′ DNA strands display an unusually high fluorescence quantum yield in the near-infrared region.

DNA oligomers are known to serve as stabilizing ligands for silver nanoclusters (Ag N -DNAs) with rod-like nanocluster geometries and nanosecond-lived fluorescence. Here, we report two Ag N -DNAs that possess distinctly different structural properties and are the first to exhibit only microsecond-lived luminescence. These emitters are characterized by significant broadband downconversion from the ultraviolet/visible to the near-infrared region. Circular dichroism spectroscopy shows that the structures of these two Ag N -DNAs differ significantly from previously reported Ag N -DNAs. We find that these nanoclusters contain eight valence electrons, making them the first reported DNA-stabilized luminescent quasi-spherical superatoms. This work demonstrates the important role that nanocluster composition and geometry play in dictating luminescence properties of Ag N -DNAs and significantly expands the space of structure–property relations that can be achieved for Ag N -DNAs.

We investigated the effect of using D2O versus H2O as solvent on the spectroscopic properties of two NIR emissive DNA-stabilized silver nanoclusters (DNA–AgNCs).

We investigated two DNA-stabilized silver nanoclusters (DNA-AgNCs) that show multiple absorption features in the visible region, and emit around 811 nm (DNA811-AgNC) and 841 nm (DNA841-AgNC). Both DNA-AgNCs have large...