Understanding the Role of Poly(vinylpyrrolidone) in Stabilizing and Capping Colloidal Silver Nanocrystals

The ligands anchored to the surface of metal nanocrystals play an important role in controlling their colloidal synthesis for a broad spectrum of applications, but it remains a daunting challenge to investigate the ligand–surface and ligand–solvent interactions at the molecular level. Here, we report the use of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) to extract structural information about the binding of poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) to Ag nanocubes as well as its conformational changes in response to solvent quality. When a PVP chain binds to the surface of a Ag nanocube through some of its carbonyl groups, the segments between adjacent binding sites are expelled into the solvent as loops. As a result, the carbonyl peak (νC═O) resolved in the SERS spectrum includes the contributions from those anchored to the surface and those residing on the loops, with their frequencies located at νC═O(Ag) and νC═O(free), respectively. While νC═O(Ag) remains at a fixed frequency due to the coordination between the carbonyl groups with Ag surface, the spectral position of νC═O(free) is dependent on the solvent. As the strength of hydrogen bonding between PVP and solvent increases, the peak position of νC═O(free) shifts toward lower frequencies. When exposed to bad and good solvents in an alternating manner, the PVP loops undergo conformational changes between collapsed and extended states, altering the separation between the free carbonyl groups and the Ag surface and thereby the intensity of the νC═O peak.