Abstract:
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The use of chiral organic ligands during
nanoparticle synthesis is key to designing optically active
materials for biological and catalytic applications. To understand
such complex processes at the atomic level, we performed
DFT simulations and built Wulff thermodynamic structures to
model the impact of amino acids on gold nanoparticle
morphology. Herein, we report the adsorption of L-cysteine at
low and high coverage on achiral gold surfaces (111), (110),
and (100) as well as chiral gold terminations (321) and (321̅).
We found that L-cysteine preferentially binds to Au(321),
inducing a chiral templating effect, and the enantiomeric
enrichment is favored at low coverage situations. |