Although N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) have demonstrated outstanding potential for use as surface anchors, synthetic challenges have limited their application to either large planar substrates or very small spherical nanoparticles. The development of a strategy to graft NHCs onto non-spherical nanomaterials, such as gold nanorods, would greatly expand their utility as surface ligands. Here, we use a bidentate thiolate–NHC–gold(i) complex that is easily grafted onto commercial cetyl trimethylammonium bromide-stabilized gold nanorods through ligand exchange. On mild reduction of the resulting surface-tethered NHC–gold(i) complexes, the gold atom attached to the NHC complex is added to the surface as an adatom, thereby precluding the need for reorganization of the underlying surface lattice upon NHC binding. The resulting thiolate–NHC-stabilized gold nanorods are stable towards excess glutathione for up to six days, and under conditions with large variations in pH, high and low temperatures, high salt concentrations, or in biological media and cell culture. We also demonstrate the utility of these nanorods for in vitro photothermal therapy.

尽管N杂环卡宾（NHC）已证明具有用作表面锚固剂的巨大潜力，但合成方面的挑战已将其应用限制在大型平面基材或非常小的球形纳米颗粒上。将NHCs接枝到非球形纳米材料（如金纳米棒）上的策略的开发将大大扩展其作为表面配体的用途。在这里，我们使用双齿硫醇盐-NHC-金（i）络合物，该络合物很容易通过配体交换嫁接到商业化的十六烷基三甲基溴化铵稳定的金纳米棒上。轻度减少所得的表面束缚的NHC-金（i）络合物，附着在NHC络合物上的金原子作为吸附原子添加到表面，从而排除了在NHC结合后需要对下面的表面晶格进行重组。所得的硫醇盐– NHC稳定的金纳米棒对过量的谷胱甘肽稳定长达六天，并且在pH，高温和低温，高盐浓度或生物培养基和细胞培养中存在较大差异的条件下。我们还证明了这些纳米棒在体外光热疗法中的实用性。