Liganded silver and gold quantum clusters. Towards a new class of nonlinear optical nanomaterials

About the Authors:Dr. Rodolphe Antoine is a Research director at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). His research field is the study of molecular systems of growing complexity in the gas phase. In 1997, he was recruited at CNRS in Lyon for building a molecular beam deflection experiment for electric polarizability measurements on clusters and biomolecules. Most important results on biomolecules are: the first –and unique- measurements of electric dipole of isolated peptides and the first observation of gas phase beta sheets. In 2004, in order to go through larger and more complex systems, his research moved towards laser spectroscopy on trapped biomolecular ions and nanoparticles. He recently focused on the functional role of small silver and gold quantum clusters in model hybrid systems involving peptides in context of new generation of hybrid nanostructured materials for biosensing. Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Vlasta Bonačić-Koutecký is professor of physical and theoretical chemistry in Department of Chemistry, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Since 2010, she is the Director of theInterdisciplinary Center for Advanced Science and Technology (ICAST) and since 2014, she is a head of Center of excellence for science and technology - integration of Mediterranean region (STIM) at the University of Split in Croatia. Her major research areas are:- Theoretical photochemistry and photophysics- Chemistry and physics of metal clusters and cluster-biomolecule hybrids- Development of cluster-based catalytic, optical and biosensing materials- Quantum chemical adiabatic and nonadiabatic molecular dynamics "on the fly" in the frame of TDDFT- Semiclassical dynamics- Theory and methods for simulation of time-resolved spectroscopies- Optimal control and laser selective photochemistry

• 1 Introduction.Background.- 2 Microscopic theory of nonlinear optics for two-photon processes.- 3 Computational Evaluation of Optical Nonlinearities.- 4 Liganded noble metal nanoclusters as new NLO chromophores.- 5 Measurement Techniques of Optical Nonlinearities: Two-photon.- 6 Case studies: Experimental and theoretical.- 7 Summary and future directions.- Index.