Three‐ligand Co‐assembled 2D Au(I)‐Thiolate Nanosheets

Abstract Two‐dimensional (2D) Au(I)‐thiolate assemblies are a special type of material that can balance high structural stability and rich surface functionality, which shows promising prospects in both fundamental research and applications. Co‐assembly of multiple ligands is a facile way to further enrich the surface properties and functions, and expand their application potentials. In this work, taking 3‐mercaptopropionic acid (MPA), cysteine (Cys) and 1‐thioglycerol (TGO) as example ligands, we studied in detail the possibility to co‐assemble them into one nanosheet. Although the three ligands have significantly different controllability and pathways when self‐assembling individually with Au(I), they can still be effectively co‐assembled by reacting with HAuCl 4 together to obtain three‐ligand nanosheets with good colloidal stability. The key points for successful co‐assembly are also revealed by comparing single‐ and three‐ligand self‐assembly processes, laying a solid foundation for co‐assembly of even more ligands. The easy but powerful strategy for 2D materials with closely‐packed and multiple tunable surface functional groups addresses the surface engineering problem for 2D materials and paves the way for their wider applications in sensing and biomaterials.