Kinetic Aspects of Enzyme-Mediated Evolution of Highly
Luminescent Meta Silver Nanoclusters
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Abstract
The
proteolysis of human serum albumin (HSA) templated Ag nanoclusters
(NCs) induced by trypsin digestion reveals that photoluminescence
(PL) intensity of the blue emitting Ag:HSA NCs exhibits a decremental
behavior. The unique aspect of this study is the gradual evolution
of a new red emission band characterized by an enhanced quantum yield
(QY) of ∼28% and a lifetime ∼80 ns in contrast to the
parent blue-emitting Ag:HSA NCs (QY = 16% and lifetime ∼7.4
ns). The decay and growth PL kinetics of Ag NCs upon trypsin digestion
have been used to unravel the process of destabilization of the Ag:HSA
NCs and the simultaneous formation of the meta AgTp NCs as evidenced
from MALDI-TOF spectra. Our fluorescence correlation spectroscopy
(FCS) data substantiate the evolution of larger sized Ag NCs due to
enzymatic digestion which thereby results in a slower translational
diffusion rate as a consequence of their increasing hydrodynamic diameters