"Visualizing" the partially reversible conversion of gold nanoclusters the Au(S--CH) intermediate.

Transformation chemistry of atomically precise metal nanoclusters has emerged as a novel strategy for fundamental research on the structure-property correlations of nanomaterials. However, a thorough understanding of the transformation mechanism is indeed necessary to understand the structural growth patterns and corresponding property evolutions in nanoclusters. Herein, we present the ligand-exchange-induced transformation of the [Au(SR)] (8e) nanocluster to the [Au(SR')] (8e) nanocluster, through the Au(SR) (6e) intermediate species.