Temperature-induced optical property and conformational change of BSA-protected gold nanoclusters

In the present study, we apply fluorescence spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared (FT IR) spectroscopy to investigate the temperature-induced optical property and conformational changes of BSA-protected gold nanoclusters (AuNCs@BSA). By the plot of single-band-shift, combined with VV-2D correlation analysis including hetero-spectral correlation and moving window correlation, the dynamics changes of the ligand BSA induced by temperature have been investigated in detail and compared with that induced by the perturbation of pressure. The study may be helpful to stimulate more experimental and theoretical research on the atomic level design of luminescent metal nanoclusters for promising optoelectronic and other applications. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.