Spectroscopy of isolated, mass-selected tryptophan-Ag3 complexes: a model for photoabsorption enhancement in nanoparticle-biomolecule hybrid systems

We wish to show that gas-phase studies of small metal cluster-biomolecule complexes provide fundamental insights into the mechanism leading to enhanced optical absorption in nanoparticle-biomolecular hybrid systems. Here we present, for the first time, a joint experimental and theoretical study of photoabsorption and photofragmentation of the silver trimer-tryptophan cation complex ([Trp.Ag3]+). We demonstrate that binding the metal cluster to a biomolecule leads to a remarkably high optical absorption as compared to the bare tryptophan or the [Trp.Ag]+ complex. As calculations show this arises due to coupling between the excitations in the metallic subunit with a charge transfer excitation to the tryptophan molecule.