A High Working Temperature Multiferroic Induced by Inverse Temperature Symmetry Breaking.

Molecular-based multiferroic materials that possess ferroelectric and ferroelastic orders simultaneously have attracted tremendous attention for their potential applications in multiple-state memory devices, molecular switches, and information storage systems. However, it is still a great challenge to effectively construct novel molecular-based multiferroic materials with multifunctionalities. Generally, the structure of these materials possess high symmetry at high temperatures, while processing an obvious order-disorder or displacement-type ferroelastic or ferroelectric phase transition triggered by symmetry breaking during the cooling processes.

[BaCl] Cations Directed Perovskite-like Polar Metal Formate Frameworks {[BaCl][M(HCO)]} (M = Mn, Co, and Mg): Microwave-Assisted Synthesis, Structures, and Properties.

Novel 3D metal formate frameworks {[BaCl][M(HCO)]} (M = Mn for , Co for , and Mg for ) were successfully assembled via microwave-assisted synthesis. The complexes are rare coordination polymers crystallized at space group 4 with the polar point group . In the structure, the M ions are bridged by two types of - formate in forming a 3D framework, and additional formates coordinate to the unsaturated sites of the M ions in the framework, giving an anionic M-formate net.