Electrical property and Schottky behavior of a flexible Schiff-base compound: X-ray structure and stabilization of 1D water chain

Abstract

The flexible Schiff-base compound 2,2′-((1,4-phenylenebis-(methylene))bis(sulfanediyl))bis(N-(pyridin-4-ylmethylene)aniline) (1; pbbpa) has been synthesized by a two-step synthetic procedure and characterized by elemental analysis, infrared (IR) spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) pattern and single crystal X-ray diffraction (SCXRD) technique. The compound exhibits electrical conductivity in the semiconducting region, as revealed by band gap calculation and further confirmed by density functional theory (DFT) computations. Interestingly, the compound formed a Schottky interface with aluminum (Al) metal, which is supported by the impedance spectroscopy (IS)-based network analysis. Besides, SCXRD of compound 1 reveals the formation of a one-dimensional (1D) water chain encapsulated by the hydrogen bonded supramolecular network.