NaGaI 3 O 9 F: a new alkali metal gallium iodate combined with IO 3 − and IO 3 F 2− units

• Published in: Dalton transactions : an international journal of inorganic chemistry Vol. 50; no. 33; pp. 11562 - 11567
• Main Authors: Wang, Dandan, Gong, Pifu, Zhang, Xinyuan, Lin, Zheshuai, Hu, Zhanggui, Wu, Yicheng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 24.08.2021
• ISSN: 1477-9226; 1477-9234
• DOI: 10.1039/D1DT02122B

Birefringent crystals are very important optical materials, which are widely used in the fields of optics and communication. In this work, we reported a new iodate, NaGaI 3 O 9 F, synthesized by mild hydrothermal method. NaGaI 3 O 9 F crystallized in the monoclinic space group P 2 1 / c (No. 14) and it featured a novel ∞ [Ga 2 (IO 3 F) 2 (IO 3 ) 4 ] 2− layer stacked with Na + cations located in the void maintaining charge balance. Notably, IO 3 − and IO 3 F 2− anionic units appeared in the same time in the A–Ga–I–O/F (A = alkali metal) system. According to the experimental characterization and theoretical calculations, NaGaI 3 O 9 F showed a wide bandgap (4.27 eV) and large birefringence (Δ n exp ∼ 0.203, Δ n cal = 0.197 at 1064 nm), indicating its potential use as a birefringent material.