Dendrimer templates for the formation of gold nanoclusters

Charged poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers are used to create organic-inorganic hybrid colloids in aqueous solution. The formation of gold colloids upon reduction of a gold salt precursor serves as a model reaction to study the influence of reaction conditions and dendrimer generation on the resulting nanostructures. Characterization by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) show that the gold particles are formed inside the dendrimer and located offset from the center. Although lower generation dendrimers aggregate when stabilizing the metal particles formed, dendrimers of generation 6-9 can template one gold colloid per dendrimer molecule, the size of which is well-controlled by the number of gold atoms added per dendrimer. For generation 10, multiple smaller gold particles per dendrimer are observed. The effectiveness of PAMAM dendrimers as templates in the host-guest nanoscale synthesis is confirmed for different chemical reactions.