MIRO 101: The new crystal for optics research synthesized by a Chilean laboratory The new crystal for optics research synthesized by a Chilean laboratory

The research team managed to synthesize a record-sized crystal of Metal Organic Lattices in a laboratory of the MIRO Millennium Institute, located at the University of Santiago de Chile.

A research process carried out at the University of Santiago de Chile, and under the wing of the Millennium Institute for Research in Optics (MIRO) gave rise to a publication in the ACS Omega journal, of the American Chemical Society, in the which the anisotropic absorption capacity in a Metal Organic Lattice crystal created in the Nanosynthesis Laboratorywhich is led by PhD in Physics and MIRO Research Associate, Dr. Dinesh Singh.

“Metal Organic Networks (MOF) crystals are a new type of material with metallic nodes coordinated with organic ligands, with which structures of one, two and even three dimensions are formed.. These materials are of great interest in the area of ​​gas storage, filtration, catalytic activities, etc., due to their highly porous structures,” explains Dr. Singh.

Currently, MOF crystals are also used for research in linear and non-linear optics, however, the difficulty of synthesizing them lies in the complexity of making large crystals that are of a quality suitable for the study of light..

“We synthesized a MOF, called MIRO 101, of record size, which can measure up to 8 millimeters, and in this article we report single crystals (of Zn(3-ptz)2) of great transparency, as well as the mechanism to make them grow.”, details Singh.

The publication called “Anisotropic absorption at the band limit in millimeter single crystals of metalo-organic Zn(3-ptz)2 lattices” focused specifically on measuring the absorption spectrum of ultraviolet light in these crystals, from different planes of lateral incidence. .

MIRO researcher and USACH academic Dr. Felipe Herrera comments that this is “a demonstration of the sensitivity of the interaction of light with this class of crystalsdepending on the arrangement in space of the molecules that compose it, in a blue and violet frequency range, which is very important for its possible application in screen devices, or as a biological marker (fluorescence)”.

“This allows us to understand how these MOF materials behave as birefringent single crystals (where a double refraction of light occurs) that could have applications as frequency conversion devices or efficient light polarizers. Also, It is a unique opportunity, since there are few examples of MOFs that can be crystallized in millimeter sizes.adds MIRO postdoctoral researcher Dr. Rubén Fritz.

The research work lasted a year and involved Ignacio Chi Durán, as first author, Rubén Fritz, Rodrigo Urzúa-Leiva, Gloria Cárdenas-Jirón, Dinesh Singh and Felipe Herrera.

It was a theoretical and experimental investigation, in which diffractometers were used to characterize the faces of single crystals. In addition, the area of ​​the faces was determined using light microscopy and spectrometry was used to measure the light absorption on the different faces and on small or polycrystalline crystals.

Going forward, the team will continue to explore the qualities of MIRO 101 crystals. “We are going to exploit the advantage that the large size of these crystals gives us to be able to make devices that are compatible with other optoelectronic devices that are commonly used to modulate optical signals and that have various applications in telecommunications and spectroscopy”concludes the researcher Felipe Herrera.

The publication is freely available at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.2c01856