Synthesis of metal nanoclusters and regulation of their photoluminescent properties

Metal nanocluster is a kind of zero dimensional material with excellent photophysical properties and good biocompatibility. The selectivity of ligands to the thermodynamically stabilized products of clusters and the kinetic regulation of reducing agents can be used to synthesize metal nanoclusters with various structures, which show great potential in the fields of optical materials, biomaterials and catalytic materials. However, the instability and weak luminescence of metal nanoclusters limit their practical application. Therefore, the coordinated regulation of aggregation-induced emission effect and supramolecular self-assembly on stability and optical properties of metal nanoclusters can construct metal nanoclusters assembly with controllable structure and luminescent properties, which effectively promotes the practical availability of metal nanoclusters. In this paper, the synthesis of metal nanoclusters protected by different ligands is briefly introduced, and the photoluminescence properties of metal nanoclusters are illuminated. The influence of aggregation-induced emission effect on the photoluminescence properties of cluster supramolecular assemblies is summarized. The existing problems in current research are analyzed and the prospect of future research are proposed.