Scientific Achievement

  • Researchers in the Semiconductor Nanowires program developed a crown-ether-assisted supramolecular assembly strategy to construct one-dimensional molecular wires with alternating crown ether–cation complexes and metal–halide complexes

Significance and Impact

  • General design principle to construct metal-halide molecular wires with tunable optical functions, including efficient photoluminescence and nonlinear optical responses

Research Details

  • Crystallized molecular wires through an antisolvent-assisted supramolecular assembly process.
  • A (18C6@Ba)MnBr4 crystal exhibits green PL with over 80% photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) and strong SHG

Publication Details

H. Zhu, Ch. Zhu, H.K.D. Le, D. Chabeda, B. Field, Ch. Wen, A.M. Oddo, Y. Jiang, L. Jayasinghe, Y. Shan, L. Verbitsky, H. Jayakumar, S.M. Griffin, E. Rabani, P. Yang, Nature Chemistry (2026).

DOI: 10.1038/s41557-026-02101-0

Work was performed at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and in part at NERSC and the Molecular Foundry.