A pair of homochiral trinuclear Zn(ii) clusters exhibiting unusual ferroelectric behaviour at high temperature. Issue 14 (8th March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Liu, Meiying; Yu, Haiyang; Liu, Zhiliang
• Is Part Of: CrystEngComm. Volume 21:Issue 14(2019)
• Page Start: 2355
• Page End: 2361
• Publication Date: 2019-03-08
• Subjects: Crystals -- Periodicals; Crystal growth -- Periodicals; Crystallography -- Periodicals; Cristaux -- Périodiques; Cristaux -- Croissance -- Périodiques; Cristallographie -- Périodiques; 548
• DOI: 10.1039/c9ce00034h
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1466-8033

Abstract

Abstract : A pair of homochiral trinuclear Zn(ii ) clusters exhibit unusual ferroelectric behaviour at high temperature. Abstract : Molecular ferroelectrics as a class of promising information storage materials have triggered widespread attention owing to their light weight, easy processing and mechanical flexibility. However, reports of molecular ferroelectrics with high-temperature ferroelectric behaviour and higher spontaneous polarization are mainly focused on organic–inorganic perovskites, which are scarce in coordination compound avenues. Here, a pair of homochiral trinuclear Zn(ii ) clusters formulated as R-[Zn3 (R–L)2 (CH3 COO)4 ] (R-1 ) and S-[Zn3 (S–L)2 (CH3 COO)4 ] (S-1 ) were successfully constructed with zinc(ii ) and the enantiomeric chiral Schiff-base ligands (R/S)-HL (HL = 2-methoxy-6-[(1-phenyl-ethylimino)-methyl]-phenol) through a solvent diffusion method. The solid-state circular dichroism (CD) spectra perfectly illustrate the enantiomeric characteristics ofR-1 andS-1 . Interestingly, the trinuclear Zn(ii ) cluster (R-1 ) exhibits unusual high-temperature ferroelectric behaviour at 503 K, when the external electric field is 12 KV cm −1, and the remnant polarity ( P r ) and spontaneous polarization ( P s ) ofR-1 can reach up to 5.4 μC cm −2 and 8.45 μC cm −2, respectively, which are comparable with organic–inorganic perovskite ferroelectrics in the literature. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first example of a high-temperature ferroelectric possessing higher spontaneous polarization in Zn-based molecular ferroelectrics.