Synthesis, Characterization and Optical Properties of Chiral Metal Halides

Halide perovskites pose as a versatile class of semiconductor materials with exceptional optoelectronic properties and unique structural versatility. They are very competent in applications such as solid-state solar cells and LEDs, but their potential in non-traditional perovskite related research directions such as spintronics is not yet explored. Despite their performance, traditional lead-based perovskites are not suitable for real applications due to toxicity and instability related issues. Double perovskites and lead-free metal halides can eliminate the need for lead, while producing a greener material with equally exquisite optoelectronic features.<br/>Towards this end we synthesized a lead-free metal halide compound based on a chiral linker (L1). Utilization of chiral linkers allows the acquisition of non-centrosymmetric crystalline materials, highly sought after for their nonlinear optical properties (NLO). We present here the synthesis of (L1)₂Sb₂Br₁₀, along with its structural, and optical properties. The material is a wide band gap semiconductor, it crystallizes in the <i>P</i>2₁ space group, and exhibits asymmetric broad light emission at RT. Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) measurements verify the non-centrosymmetric nature of the structure, while the in-plane azimuthal SHG plot reveals a strong anisotropic signal. This new material poses as an excellent candidate for spintronic applications where important structure-property relationships in terms of spin lifetimes can be extracted.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>References<br/>[1] A. Azmi, A. Anderson, A. Fyffe, N. Zibouche, L. Wojtas, M. T. Trinh, I. Spanopoulos, <i>under submision. </i><b>2022</b>.