Three-orders-of-magnitude variation of carrier lifetimes with crystal phase of gold nanoclusters

We report a three-orders-of-magnitude variation of carrier lifetimes in exotic crystalline phases of gold nanoclusters (NCs) in addition to the well-known face-centered cubic structure, including hexagonal close-packed (hcp) Au30 and body-centered cubic (bcc) Au38 NCs protected by the same type of capping ligand. The bcc Au38 NC had an exceptionally long carrier lifetime (4.7 microseconds) comparable to that of bulk silicon, whereas the hcp Au30...