Structural determination of a metastable Ag27 nanocluster and its transformations into Ag8 and Ag29 nanoclusters

Research on nanocluster transformation has generally focused on stable nanoclusters, while analysis of the structural evolutions of metastable nanoclusters just began to receive attention recently. Herein, we report the structural determination of a metastable Ag27H11(SPhMe2)12(DPPM)6 nanocluster and its spontaneous transformation into a size-reduction Ag8(SPhMe2)8(DPPM)1 nanocluster as well as ligand-exchange-triggered transformation into a size-growth Ag29(SSR)12(DPPM)4 nanocluster. The new structure of Ag27 and its structural transformations hopefully provide some implication to the in-depth understanding of metastable nanoclusters.