Quasicrystallinity expressed in two-dimensional coordination networks.
The recognition of quasicrystals, which exhibit long-range order but lack translational symmetry, represented both the introduction of a new class of materials and a transformative breakthrough in crystallography. Concomitant with the exploration of quasicrystallinity, metal-organic architectures emerged as promising and versatile systems with significant application potential. Their building principles have been studied extensively and become manifest in a multitude of intricate amorphous and crystalline phases. To date, however, indications for quasicrystalline order have been elusive in metal-organic coordination networks (MOCNs). Here we employ rare-earth-directed assembly to construct a two-dimensional tiling with quasicrystalline characteristics at a well-defined gold substrate. By careful stoichiometry control over europium centres and functional linkers, we produced a porous network, including the simultaneous expression of four-fold, five-fold and six-fold vertices. The pertaining features were directly inspected by scanning tunnelling microscopy, and the molecule-europium reticulation was recognized as square-triangle tessellation with dodecagonal symmetry. Our findings introduce quasicrystallinity in surface-confined MOCNs with a nanoporous structure and anticipate functionalities that arise from quasicrystalline ordering of the coordinative spheres.
Physik-Department E20, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany.
José I
JI
Urgel
IMDEA Nanoscience, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
David
D
Écija
Department of Physics, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China.
Guoqing
G
Lyu
Department of Physics, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China.
Ran
R
Zhang
Physik-Department E20, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany.
Carlos-Andres
CA
Palma
Physik-Department E20, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany.
Willi
W
Auwärter
Department of Physics, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China.
Nian
N
Lin
Physik-Department E20, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany.
Johannes V
JV
Barth