A 1D chiral infinite chain organic metal halide hybrid with excellent SHG switching and moderate spontaneous polarization

Abstract

Organic metal halide hybrids have attracted significant attention because of their simple synthesis and potential applications in energy storage, optoelectronic devices, and solar batteries. However, there is still a lack of exploration of multifunctional low-dimensional organic metal halides. Here, we report a 1D chiral lead-free organic metal halide hybrid of (C₄H₁₀NO)₂SbCl₅ (1) which follows the one-dimensional inorganic frameworks of the corner-sharing SbCl₆ octahedra, displays low-temperature reversible switching of quadratic nonlinear optical (NLO) properties induced by a phase transition near 266 K, making it a promising candidate as a new solid-state SHG switch, and exhibits phase transition behavior verified by DSC and variable-temperature PXRD. In addition, 1 shows clear ferroelectricity with moderate spontaneous polarization of 4.7 μC cm⁻². Theoretical analysis of its electronic structure shows that the semiconducting behavior of 1 is dominated by the inorganic polyhedron [SbCl₅²⁻].