CrystEngComm Blog

Scientists from Japan and China have investigated the crystal structures of bisazomethine dyes in this CrystEngComm Hot article.

The researchers looked at the 2D molecular stacking of the structures, to try and work out the best way of engineering a quasi-low-D electronic state. These materials could then be used in opto-electronics, especially in flexible devices.

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Effects of alkoxy substitution on the crystal structure of 2,3-bis[(E)-4-(diethylamino)-2-alkoxybenzylideneamino]fumaronitrile derivatives
Byung-Soon Kim, Takumi Jindo, Ryohei Eto, Yohei Shinohara, Young-A Son, Sung-Hoon Kim and Shinya Matsumoto
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05198A

James D. Wuest and co-workers from the University of Montréal, Canada, look at crystalline amino-substituted azines in this CrystEngComm Hot article.

They look at how 2D and 3D structures of crystalline materials can be designed, using aminoazines and alkanecarboxylic acids absorbed on graphite as the test case, and as the authors say ‘Our results may therefore help identify other families of compounds that dependably favor analogous crystallization in 3D and 2D, possibly even when multiple surfaces are used and when significant epitaxy is not present’

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Engineering homologous molecular organization in 2D and 3D. Cocrystallization of aminoazines and alkanecarboxylic acids
Adam Duong, Thierry Maris and James D. Wuest
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05445G

This CrystEngComm Hot article describes the fabrication of SnO₂/α-Fe₂O₃ nanoheterostructures by a hydrothermal process.

The structures are made of iron oxide nanoprisms with tin dioxide nanorods on the inner and outer surfaces, which gives them superior visible light photocatalytic properties. The authors believe this is due to ‘the effective electron-hole separation at the SnO₂/α-Fe₂O₃ interfaces’.

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SnO2/α-Fe2O3 nanoheterostructure with novel architecture: structural characteristics and photocatalytic properties
Ju Xu, Feng Huang, Yunlong Yu, Anping Yang and Yuansheng Wang
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05270E

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This CrystEngComm Hot article investigates the formation of co-crystals from an isoindoline nitroxide and an iodoperfluorocarbon, and looks at the halogen bonding in the resulting crystals.

This is particularly interesting as organic spin systems such as this are of importance in the fields of spintronics and spin-based quantum computing. This method is fast and reliable, so the making of organic molecular magnetic materials is much easier.

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Read the full article for FREE to discover more about the way they prepared their x-bonding co-crystals…

Vapour phase assembly of a halogen bonded complex of an isoindoline nitroxide and 1,2-diiodotetrafluorobenzene
Karl J. P. Davy, John McMurtrie, Llew Rintoul, Paul V. Bernhardt and Aaron S. Micallef
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05344B

Masato Uehara and Hideaki Maeda look at unusually shaped zinc sulphide nanocrystals in this CrystEngComm Hot article.

The scientists from Japan, made ZnS nanocrystals with a conical head, rather than the expected truncated pyramid.

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Structural characterization of ZnS nanocrystals with a conic head using HR–TEM and HAADF tomography
Masato Uehara, Yusuke Nakamura, Satoshi Sasaki, Hiroyuki Nakamura and Hideaki Maeda
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05168G

This paper is building on the team’s earlier work, published in CrystEngComm earlier in the year:

Controlled synthesis and structural evolutions of ZnS nanodots and nanorods using identical raw material solution, M. Uehara, S. Sasaki, Y. Nakamura, C. G. Lee, K. Watanabe, H. Nakamura and H. Maeda
CrystEngComm, 2011, 13, 2973–2983

In this CrystEngComm Hot article, Michael Lorenz and colleagues from Universitat Leipzig have made fresnoite thin films, fused on various materials by pulsed laser deposition, for use in photonic applications.

The mineral fresnoite (Ba₂TiSi₂O₈)was discovered in California in 1965, and has become increasingly interesting to chemists because of its luminescence, non-linear optic and ferroelectic properties. In this work the authors examine the understudied films of these minerals, focussing on their growth using pulsed laser deposition, which hasn’t been done before.

Lorenz and coworkers found that the fresnoite films had high photoluminescence intensity, and were able to use a laser to ‘write’ on the films, which induced local crystallisation. They think this will open the door for many applications of their films, including potentially ‘security features against product piracy or individualized branding of products’.

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Fresnoite thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition: photoluminescence and laser crystallization
Alexander Müller, Michael Lorenz, Kerstin Brachwitz, Jörg Lenzner, Kai Mittwoch, Wolfgang Skorupa, Marius Grundmann and Thomas Höche
CrystEngComm, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1CE05265A