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.