Organic-soluble fluorescent Au8 clusters generated from heterophase ligand-exchange induced etching of gold nanoparticles and their electrochemiluminescence.

A unique heterophase ligand exchange induced etching process was used to transform gold nanoparticles into organic-soluble fluorescent gold clusters which were assigned to Au(8) by optical spectroscopy and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. Both the annihilation electrochemiluminescence of fluorescent Au(8) clusters in organic solution and the coreactant electrochemiluminescence of Au(8) cluster film in aqueous solution were studied.