Chemical engineering of quasicrystal approximants in lanthanide-based coordination solids

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 11; no. 1; p. 4705
• Main Authors: Voigt, Laura, Kubus, Mariusz, Pedersen, Kasper S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 17.09.2020; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/301/119/1002; 639/638/298/921; 639/638/911; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18328-5

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 2 (4,4′-bipyridine) 2.5 . 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. Tessellation of self-assembling molecular building blocks is attractive for accessing metal-organic materials with geometric frustration, however such motifs are rare. Here the authors use ytterbium(II) as a five-vertex node to assemble an Archimedean tessellation in a bulk, molecule-based material.