Network coordination polymers have been studied for their fundamental structural and chemical properties for decades, but their opto/electronic applications have not been explored. We have shown that copper(I) thiocyanate (CuSCN), a 3D coordination polymer, is a wide band gap p-type semiconductor and has demonstrated its wide-ranging applications such as the semiconducting channel in thin-film transistors (TFTs) and the hole-transport layer in organic solar cells (OSCs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), and perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Moreover, the idea has been extended to tin(II) thiocyanate [Sn(NCS)2]; our recent work shows that Sn(NCS)2 is also a wide band gap semiconductor with underlying 1D and 2D structures as well as promising charge carrier transport characteristics. In both compounds, the coordination with the thiocyanate ligands preserves the electronic states of the metal near the top of the valence bands while the band gaps are enlarged due to the high energy π* molecular orbital of the thiocyanate forming the conduction bands. In the current work, we investigate the mixing of Cu(I) and Sn(II) with the expectation to transform both the structural and electronic properties. SnCu(SCN) compounds were synthesized by the mechanochemical process in order to avoid the uneven kinetics of the two metal ions in the solution-based method. Different processing parameters were tested, such as the milling time, the mixing ratio, and the addition of solvents. The mixed-metal thiocyanate compounds were studied by X-ray diffraction to elucidate their structures which would strongly affect the electronic properties. This is the first attempt to alter the electronic properties of metal thiocyanate compounds based on the mixed-metal approach.

Preparation of mixed-metal thiocyanate of SnCu(SCN) for opto/electronic applications

2019 Fall National Meeting

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