Sugar-Based 1-Dimensional Metal-Organic Chalcogenolates with Hydration-Tunable Chiroptical Emission
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Updated: Nov 6, 2026

Combining Solid-state and Solution-based Techniques: Synthesis and Reactivity of Chalcogenidoplumbates(II or IV)
Published on: December 29, 2016
Qiaoling Fan1,2, Adriana J Ladera3,4, Daniel W Paley5
1Institute of Materials Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut06269, United States.
Abstract:
Chiral topology in semiconductors introduces a structural degree of freedom for tuning the chiroptical, excitonic, and spintronic behavior. In metal-organic chalcogenolates (MOChas) semiconductors, how ligand stereochemistry and supramolecular organization influence chiral topology, and thus optical and excitonic responses, remains poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate intrinsic circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) in sugar-based 1-dimensional MOChas, with structures solved via small-molecule serial femtosecond crystallography. These materials exhibit blue and green CPLs, arising from the chiral inorganic core. Despite the close chemical similarity between the glucose- and galactose-derived ligands, we observed dramatic differences in their inorganic structure. Silver glucosethiolate shows reversible hydration-driven photoluminescence switching with a hydration-linked emission energy. Labile water molecules in the glucose-based system correlate with a blueshift in excitonic emission. Our results suggest a new direction in the search for chirophotonic hybrid semiconductors, exploiting intrinsically chiral topologies and excitonic optical frequencies, which are sensitively modulated by ligand identity and supramolecular interactions.
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