Porous lanthanide metal–organic frameworks with metallic conductivity

Abstract

Metallic charge transport and porosity appear almost mutually exclusive. Whereas metals demand large numbers of free carriers and must have minimal impurities and lattice vibrations to avoid charge scattering, the voids in porous materials limit the carrier concentration, provide ample space for impurities, and create more charge-scattering vibrations due to the size and flexibility of the lattice. No microporous material has been conclusively shown to behave as a metal. Here, we demonstrate that single crystals of the porous metal–organic framework Ln 1.5 (2,3,6,7,10,11-hexaoxytriphenylene) (Ln = La, Nd) are metallic. The materials display the highest room-temperature conductivities of all porous materials, reaching values above 1,000 S/cm. Single crystals of the compounds additionally show clear temperature-deactivated charge transport, a hallmark of a metallic material. Lastly, a structural transition consistent with charge density wave ordering, present only in metals and rare in any materials, provides additional conclusive proof of the metallic nature of the materials. Our results provide an example of a metal with porosity intrinsic to its structure. We anticipate that the combination of porosity and chemical tunability that these materials possess will provide a unique handle toward controlling the unconventional states that lie within them, such as charge density waves that we observed, or perhaps superconductivity.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Aug 15, 2022
Source ID
10.1073/pnas.2205127119

Entities

People

  • Christopher H. Hendon
  • Dmitri Leo M Cordova
  • Grigorii Skorupskii
  • Khoa N. Le
  • Luming Yang
  • Maxx Q Arguilla
  • Mircea Dincă
  • Tianyang Chen

Organizations

  • Army Research Office
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • National Science Foundation
  • University of California
  • University of Oregon

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Nanocomposite Materials Science
  • Systems Analysis and Design

Technology Areas

  • Space