New functionalities in Metal-Organic Frameworks
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a novel, rapidly increasing family of materials which has a compositional and structural diversity that is not paralleled in any other type of solid-state material.[1] Indeed, this field of research involves principles borrowed from both molecular chemistry and condensed matter physics, and thus rests at a crossroad between molecules and conventional solid-state materials.
Naturally, MOFs have excited research in a plethora of directions including, for instance, gas capture and separation, and catalysis.[1] It has very recently been demonstrated that certain MOFs exhibit semiconducting behavior with extremely high electrical conductivity,[3] metallicity,[4] large thermoelectric figure of merit,[5] and therefore have promise for e.g. high-areal supercapacitors, thermoelectric materials, and magnetoelectrics.
Our research activities are broadly devoted to the exploitation of new physical phenomena in MOF materials. Herein, we are particularly focused on the design, synthesis, and characterization of MOFs featuring excellent electronic, photonic, magnetic, and thermal properties. The advancement of our research program and the development of functional MOF materials is however contingent upon a fundamental assessment of their magnetic, electric, and thermal properties. In order to achieve this, most of our experiments are now performed at dedicated beamlines at international large-scale facilities (synchrotrons, muon, and neutron facilities).
(1)
O. M. Yaghi, M. O’Keeffe, N. W. Ockwig, H. K. Chae, Nature 2003, 423, 705.
(2) For a recent account of contemporary MOF research see: C. H. Hendon, A. J. Rieth, M. D. Korzynski, M. Dinca, ACS Cent. Sci. 2017, 3, 554.
(3) (a) A. A. Talin, A. Centrone, A. C. Ford, M. E. Foster, V. Stavila, P. Haney, R. A. Kinney, V. Szalai, F. El Gabaly, H. P. Yoon, F. Léonard, M. D. Allendorf, Science 2014, 343, 66; (b) D. Sheberla, J. C. Bachman, J. S. Elias, C.-J. Sun, Y. Shao-Horn, M. Dinca, Nat. Mater. 2017, 16, 220.
(4) (a) J. Dou, L. Sun, Y. Ge, W. Li, C. H. Hendon, J. Li, S. Gul, J. Yano, E. A. Stach, M. Dinca, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b07234; (b) K. S. Pedersen, P. Perlepe, M. L. Aubrey, D. N. Woodruff, S. E. Reyes-Lillo, A. Reinholdt, M. Rouzieres, D. Samohvalov, F. Wilhelm, A. Rogalev, J. B. Neaton, J: R. Long, R. Clérac, Nat. Chem. 2017, under review
(5) L. Sun, B. Liao, D. Sheberla, D. Kraemer, J. Zhou, E. A. Stach, D. Zakharov, V. Stavila, A. A. Talin, M. D. Allendorf, G. Chen, F. Leonard, M. Dinca, Joule 2017, 1, 168.