Interaction of fluorescent gold nanoclusters with transition metal dichalcogenides nanosheets: A spectroscopic study

In this paper, the interaction of few tens of atoms containing gold nanoclusters with two dimensional nanosheets of transition metal dichalcogenides nanosheets has been explored. The gold nanoclusters have been synthesized using chemical reduction method in presence of protein molecules as stabilizing agent. The transition metal dichalcogenides nanosheets of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) has been chemically exfoliated. Different microscopic and optical spectroscopic tools have been used for characterizing the physical properties of the gold nanoclusters and the two dimensional nanosheets of MoS2. The gold nanoclusters exhibit fluorescence emission at 690 nm. However, the interaction with transition metal dichalcogenides diminishes drastically the fluorescence intensity of the nanoclusters. The time resolved fluorescence study shows that the fluorescence lifetime of fluorescent materials can be altered in presence of MoS2 nanosheets, and the energy transfer phenomena can be observed.