Sugar-Based 1-Dimensional Metal–Organic Chalcogenolates with Hydration-Tunable Chiroptical Emission

Abstract

Abstract Chiral topology in semiconductors introduces a structural degree of freedom for tuning the chiroptical, excitonic, and spintronic behavior. In metal–organic chalcogenolates (MOChas) semiconductors, how ligand stereochemistry and supramolecular organization influence chiral topology, and thus optical and excitonic responses, remains poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate intrinsic circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) in sugar-based 1-dimensional MOChas, with structures solved via small-molecule serial femtosecond crystallography. These materials exhibit blue and green CPLs, arising from the chiral inorganic core. Despite the close chemical similarity between the glucose- and galactose-derived ligands, we observed dramatic differences in their inorganic structure. Silver glucosethiolate shows reversible hydration-driven photoluminescence switching with a hydration-linked emission energy. Labile water molecules in the glucose-based system correlate with a blueshift in excitonic emission. Our results suggest a new direction in the search for chirophotonic hybrid semiconductors, exploiting intrinsically chiral topologies and excitonic optical frequencies, which are sensitively modulated by ligand identity and supramolecular interactions.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2026 · DOI ↗