| Sumario: | Subnanometric noble metal clusters, composed by only a few atoms, behave like molecular entities and display magnetic, luminescent and catalytic activities. However, non-covalent interactions of molecular metal clusters, lacking of any ligand or surfactant, have not been seen at work. Theoretically attractive and experimentally discernable, van der Waals forces and non-covalent interactions at the metal/organic interfaces will be crucial to understand and develop the next generation of hybrid nanomaterials. Here, we present experimental and theoretical evidence of non-covalent interactions between subnanometric metal (0) silver clusters and aromatic rings and their application in the preparation of 1D self-assembled hybrid architectures with ditopic peptide nanotubes. Atomic force microscopy, fluorescence experiments, circular dichroism and computational simulations verified the occurrence of these interactions in the clean and mild formation of a novel peptide nanotube and metal cluster hybrid materials. The findings reported here confirmed the sensitivity of silver metal clusters of small atomicity towards non-covalent interactions, a concept that could find multiple applications in nanotechnology. We conclude that induced supramolecular forces are optimal candidates for the precise spatial positioning and properties modulation of molecular metal clusters. The reported results herein outline and generalize the possibilities that non-covalent interactions will have in this emerging field
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