Chemical engineering of quasicrystal approximants in lanthanide-based coordination solids.

Voigt, Laura; Kubus, Mariusz; Pedersen, Kasper S · Nat Commun · 2020

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Tessellation of self-assembling molecular building blocks is a promising strategy to design metal-organic materials exhibiting geometrical frustration and ensuing frustrated physical properties. Appearing in two-dimensional quasiperiodic phases, tilings consisting of five-vertex nodes are regarded as approximants for quasicrystals. Unfortunately, these structural motifs are exceedingly rare due to the complications of acquiring five-fold coordination confined to the plane. Lanthanide ions display the sufficient coordinative plasticity, and large ionic radii, to allow their incorporation into irregular molecule-based arrays. We herein present the use of ytterbium(II) as a five-vertex node in a two-dimensional coordination solid, YbI<sub>2</sub>(4,4'-bipyridine)<sub>2.5</sub>. The semi-regular Archimedean tessellation structure verges on quasicrystallinity and paves the way for lanthanide-based metal-organic materials with interesting photonic and magnetic properties.