Reticularized Silver Nanoclusters: From Luminescence to Sensing
Abstract
Silver nanoclusters (Ag NCs) occupy a rare chemical space where atomic precision, quantum-confined electronic structures, and rich excited-state behavior converge, yet their practical utility is often limited by structural fragility, environmental sensitivity, and weak processability. Reticularization offers a powerful solution by transforming discrete Ag NCs into crystalline extended architectures in which cluster cores, protective ligands, bridging linkers, and pore environments operate as an integrated functional lattice. This Review examines reticularized Ag NCs, or Ag nanocluster metal–organic frameworks (Ag NCMOFs), as an emerging class of programmable optical and sensing materials. We discuss how Ag cluster nuclearity, ligand-shell chemistry, linker electronics, framework dimensionality, topology, and confinement collectively dictate stability, intercluster communication, charge-transfer pathways, and luminescence. Particular attention is devoted to the photophysical consequences of reticular assembly, including framework-rigidified emission, cluster–linker excited states, triplet-state activation, ratiometric fluorescence–phosphorescence, guest-modulated color changes, circularly polarized luminescence, and optical memory. We then highlight sensing platforms in which crystalline Ag-cluster frameworks translate oxygen diffusion, volatile-organic-compound uptake, explosive recognition, metal-ion binding, antibiotic interaction, amino-acid recognition, and water-induced lattice transformation into optical or Raman-readable outputs. Beyond sensing, we survey emerging roles in catalysis, electrocatalysis, photonics, electronics, antimicrobial interfaces, and molecular diagnostics. By connecting atomic structure to framework-level function, this Review presents Ag NCMOFs not as simple assemblies of emissive clusters, but as reticularized quantum materials in which periodic order converts fragile molecular emitters into robust, adaptive, and information-rich functional solids.