Multifunctional inorganic materials have recently attracted increasingly attention for their potential applications with various properties. Note that some of infrared (IR) nonlinear optical (NLO) materials exhibit not only outstanding NLO properties but also other physicochemical properties. Thus, to explore the excellent multifunctional inorganic materials has developed as an important research direction.
Overall document surveys showed that some of IR NLO materials containing the cations with d10 configuration have shown potential nonlinear optical activity and thermochromism properties. A research group led by Prof. PAN Shilie at Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics & Chemistry（XTIPC）of Chinese Academy of Sciences focused on the exploration of metal sulfides containing the cations with d10 configuration (such as Cd2+) and synthesized two metal sulfides (BaCdSnS4 and Ba3CdSn2S8) by the solid-state method.
Researchers measured the crystal structures of BaCdSnS4 and Ba3CdSn2S8 by the single-crystal X-ray crystallography technology. BaCdSnS4 crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Fdd2, whereas the Ba3CdSn2S8 crystallizes in the space group I-43d. A comparison of their crystal structures shows that they have different structures. Ba3CdSn2S8 has a three-dimensional framework that composed of the interconnection of CdS4 and SnS4 groups, which is different from the 2D layer structure in BaCdSnS4.
By investigating NLO properties, researchers found BaCdSnS4 and Ba3CdSn2S8 have good powder second-harmonic generation (SHG) intensities at 2.09 μm laser pumping that are ∼5 and 0.8 times that of AgGaS2 in the particle size 38–55 μm, respectively, which indicates that they can be used as the promising IR NLO materials. Moreover, photoluminescence measurements also show that they exhibit the blue and green emission peaks at 485 and 530 nm and can be expected as the light emitter optical devices.
The study was published in Dalton Trans., which provides a feasible method to prepare new promising multifunctional inorganic materials by introducing the d10 elements.
This work was supported by the Special Fund for Xinjiang Key Laboratories, Natural Science Foundation of Xinjiang, National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Figure:The SHG intensities of the title compounds versus AgGaS2 and Photoluminescence emission spectra of BaCdSnS4 and Ba3CdSn2S8.（Image by XTIPC）
Contact:
Prof.PAN Shilie
E-mail:slpan@ms.xjb.ac.cn
Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics & Chemistry,CAS
