Disentangling the photophysics of DNA-stabilized silver nanocluster emitters

Abstract

It has been already established that DNA-silver fluorophores present two intense absorption bands, one in the visible and the other in the UV spectral region, and that the excitation of both bands produces a common fluorescence signal. Nevertheless, the detailed mechanism responsible for this coupling is still elusive. In this context, our work is a significant leap forward in this goal by providing a dynamic picture of the excitation and the processes that take place upon light absorption in these systems using a time-dependent density functional tight-binding approach. In the present work, we explore the electronic coupling mechanism in a cluster composed of a double string of deoxypolycytosine with six bases and a rod of six Ag atoms.