Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Crystal Prediction and Design of Tunable Light Emission in BTB–Based Metal–Organic Frameworks

Journal Article · · Advanced Optical Materials

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have recently been shown to exhibit unique mechanisms of luminescence based on charge transfer between structural units in the framework. These MOFs have the potential to be structural tuned for targeted emission with little or no metal participation. Here a computationally led, material design and synthesis methodology is presented that elucidates the mechanisms of light emission in interpenetrated structures comprised of metal centers (M = In, Ga, InGa, InEu) and BTB (1,3,5-Tris(4-carboxyphenyl)benzene) linkers, forming unique luminescent M-BTB MOF frameworks. Gas phase and periodic electronic structure calculations indicate that the intensity of the emission and the wavelength are overwhelmingly controlled by a combination of the number of interacting stacked linkers and their interatomic spacings, respectively. In the MOF, the ionic radii of the metal centers primarily control the expansion or shrinkage of the linker stacking distances. Experimentally, multiple M-BTB-based MOFs are synthesized and their photoluminescence was tested. Experiments validated the modeling by confirming that shifts in the crystal structure result in variations in light emission. Through this material design method, the mechanisms of tuning luminescence properties in interpenetrated M-BTB MOFs have been identified and applied to the design of MOFs with specific wavelength emission based on their structure.

Research Organization:
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States); Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC). Center for Understanding and Control of Acid Gas-Induced Evolution of Materials for Energy (UNCAGE-ME)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
Grant/Contract Number:
NA0003525; SC0012577
OSTI ID:
1877131
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1996263
Report Number(s):
SAND2022-8200J; 707537
Journal Information:
Advanced Optical Materials, Journal Name: Advanced Optical Materials Journal Issue: 16 Vol. 10; ISSN 2195-1071
Publisher:
WileyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (56)

Recent Progress in White Light‐Emitting Electrochemical Cells journal November 2019
Introduction of Red-Green-Blue Fluorescent Dyes into a Metal-Organic Framework for Tunable White Light Emission journal August 2017
On the Nature of Actinide- and Lanthanide-Metal Bonds in Heterobimetallic Compounds journal June 2011
Eye-Catching Dual-Fluorescent Dynamic Metal-Organic Framework Senses Traces of Water: Experimental Findings and Theoretical Correlation journal August 2016
cclib: A library for package-independent computational chemistry algorithms journal January 2008
Effect of the damping function in dispersion corrected density functional theory journal March 2011
Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set journal July 1996
Ga K-edge EXAFS analysis on the coordination of gallium in PbO–Ga2O3 glasses journal December 1997
Crystal structure and luminescence of europium4-methoxybenzoate complex with 2,2′-bipyridine[Eu(p-MOBA)3bipy] · 1⧸2C2H5OH journal December 1998
Electronic structures and magnetism of Zr-, Th-, and U-based metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) by density functional theory journal November 2020
A new hybrid exchange–correlation functional using the Coulomb-attenuating method (CAM-B3LYP) journal July 2004
Measuring the absolute quantum efficiency of luminescent materials journal November 2005
Core–Shell Structured Cyclodextrin Metal–Organic Frameworks with Hierarchical Dye Encapsulation for Tunable Light Emission journal February 2019
Single-Phase White-Light-Emitting and Photoluminescent Color-Tuning Coordination Assemblies journal August 2018
A Series of Lanthanide-Based Metal–Organic Frameworks Derived from Furan-2,5-dicarboxylate and Glutarate: Structure-Corroborated Density Functional Theory Study, Magnetocaloric Effect, Slow Relaxation of Magnetization, and Luminescent Properties journal May 2019
Predictive Acid Gas Adsorption in Rare Earth DOBDC Metal–Organic Frameworks via Complementary Cluster and Periodic Structure Models journal November 2020
Divergent Adsorption-Dependent Luminescence of Amino-Functionalized Lanthanide Metal–Organic Frameworks for Highly Sensitive NO 2 Sensors journal March 2020
Magnetic Tunability in RE-DOBDC MOFs via NO x Acid Gas Adsorption journal April 2020
Tuned Hydrogen Bonding in Rare-Earth Metal–Organic Frameworks for Design of Optical and Electronic Properties: An Exemplar Study of Y–2,5-Dihydroxyterephthalic Acid journal January 2020
Modulating Excitation Energy of Luminescent Metal–Organic Frameworks for Detection of Cr(VI) in Water journal June 2019
Electrically Driven White Light Emission from Intrinsic Metal–Organic Framework journal August 2016
Encapsulation of Various Guests by an Anionic In-Metal–Organic Framework Containing Tritopic BTB Ligand: Crystal Structure of Reichardt’s Dye Captured in an In-Metal–Organic Framework journal September 2014
Efficient Photoluminescence via Metal–Ligand Alteration in a New MOFs Family journal April 2014
Luminescent Functional Metal–Organic Frameworks journal June 2011
Metal–Organic Framework Materials as Chemical Sensors journal September 2011
Luminescent Properties of Metal–Organic Framework MOF-5: Relativistic Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory Investigations journal November 2012
Light-Harvesting Metal–Organic Frameworks (MOFs) Efficient Strut-to-Strut Energy Transfer in Bodipy and Porphyrin-Based MOFs journal October 2011
Intrinsic Broad-Band White-Light Emission by a Tuned, Corrugated Metal–Organic Framework
  • Sava, Dorina F.; Rohwer, Lauren E. S.; Rodriguez, Mark A.
  • Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 134, Issue 9, p. 3983-3986 https://doi.org/10.1021/ja211230p
journal February 2012
A Direct White-Light-Emitting Metal−Organic Framework with Tunable Yellow-to-White Photoluminescence by Variation of Excitation Light journal September 2009
Improving Energy Transfer within Metal–Organic Frameworks by Aligning Linker Transition Dipoles along the Framework Axis journal May 2020
Cerium Metal–Organic Framework for Photocatalysis journal May 2018
Engineering of Band Gap in Metal–Organic Frameworks by Functionalizing Organic Linker: A Systematic Density Functional Theory Investigation journal February 2014
Luminescent multifunctional lanthanides-based metal–organic frameworks journal January 2011
Band gap modulation of functionalized metal–organic frameworks journal January 2014
Modelling photophysical properties of metal–organic frameworks: a density functional theory based approach journal January 2016
Actinide-based MOFs: a middle ground in solution and solid-state structural motifs journal January 2018
Synthesis and characterization of thallium–salen derivatives for use as underground fluid flow tracers journal January 2018
Structure and electronic properties of rare earth DOBDC metal–organic-frameworks journal January 2019
Luminescent metal–organic frameworks journal January 2009
Engineering metal-based luminescence in coordination polymers and metal–organic frameworks journal January 2013
Adiabatic time-dependent density functional methods for excited state properties journal October 2002
A consistent and accurate ab initio parametrization of density functional dispersion correction (DFT-D) for the 94 elements H-Pu journal April 2010
Self‐consistent molecular orbital methods. XXIII. A polarization‐type basis set for second‐row elements journal October 1982
A new mixing of Hartree–Fock and local density‐functional theories journal January 1993
An efficient implementation of time-dependent density-functional theory for the calculation of excitation energies of large molecules journal November 1998
Europium-Activated Orthophosphate Phosphors For Energy-Efficient Solid-State Lighting: A Review journal June 2014
Norm-conserving and ultrasoft pseudopotentials for first-row and transition elements journal October 1994
Development of the Colle-Salvetti correlation-energy formula into a functional of the electron density journal January 1988
Ab initiomolecular dynamics for liquid metals journal January 1993
Ab initio molecular-dynamics simulation of the liquid-metal–amorphous-semiconductor transition in germanium journal May 1994
Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set journal October 1996
Restoring the Density-Gradient Expansion for Exchange in Solids and Surfaces journal April 2008
Trichlorobis(tetrahydrofuran)indium(III) journal May 1994
Criticality of the Rare Earth Elements: Criticality of the Rare Earth Elements journal March 2015
Avogadro: an advanced semantic chemical editor, visualization, and analysis platform journal August 2012
Recent trends on density functional theory–assisted calculations of structures and properties of metal–organic frameworks and metal–organic frameworks-derived nanocarbons journal June 2020