Tunable High-Pressure Field Operating on a Cationic Biphenyl Derivative Intercalated in Clay Minerals.

We propose a methodology for applying a pseudo uniaxial pressure to an organic molecule under ordinary temperature and pressure, namely by intercalation into smectites. The pseudo pressure on a biphenyl derivative (BP) was estimated from the averaged dihedral angle around the central bond of BP. In a high hydrostatic pressure field, biphenyl takes a planar conformation.

The size control of nano-cluster formed on an inorganic nanosheet/cationic organic molecule hybrid Langmuir-Blodgett film.

Organic molecules adsorbed on an inorganic nanosheet often form a nanometer-sized cluster. In this study, we propose novel strategy for controlling the cluster size. We fabricated hybrid Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films consisting of N-n-octadecyl-4-[2-(4-dimethylaminophenyl)ethenyl]-pyridinium bromide and a clay mineral, sodium montmorillonite, with varying subphase temperature.

Incorporation of cationic electron donor of Ni-pyridyltetrathiafulvalene with anionic electron acceptor of polyoxometalate.

A new salt-[Ni(II)(DMSO)(5)(TTFPy)](2)[α-SiW(12)O(40)] (1)-based on polyoxometalates was prepared by coordinating a cationic electron donor of pyridyltetrathiafulvalene (TTFPy) with Ni(II). Although the TTFPy molecule did not form a salt with the anionic α-[SiW(VI)(12)O(40)](4-) because of the weak charge-transfer (CT) interaction, the coordination of Ni with the pyridyl moiety permitted salt formation driven by electrostatic interaction, giving a single crystal of 1. Crystallographic analysis, UV-vis and IR spectroscopy and electrochemical characterization revealed that the fully oxidized α-[SiW(VI)(12)O(40)](4-) was crystallized with the neutral TTFPy moiety from the acetonitrile solution because of the low electron-withdrawing ability of α-[SiW(VI)(12)O(40)](4-), forming a brown-orange crystal.

Efficient nonlinear optical properties of dyes confined in interlayer nanospaces of clay minerals.

Nonlinear optical (NLO) responses from organic dyes can be maximized when the dyes are aligned in appropriate manners in bulk materials. The use of restricted nanospaces provided by interlayer spacing of inorganic layered materials is a promising strategy for imposing suitable molecular alignments for NLO materials on dyes. The hybrid materials thus obtained exhibit salient NLO responses owing to the improved molecular orientation.