Molecular assembly and photophysical properties of quaternary molecular hybrid materials with chemical bond

In this paper, two long chain aliphatic carboxylic acids (oleic acid [OLA] and stearic acid [STA]) are modified with cross-linking molecules (N-2-aminoethyl-3-aminopropyl-methyldimethoxylsiliane, (AEAPMMS, H-2 N(CH2)(2)HN(CH2)(3) SiCH3(OCH3)(2) and 3-aminopropyl-methyl-diethoxylsiliane (APMES, H-2 N(CH2)(3)SiCH3(OC2H5)(2)) resulting in four new kinds of structural molecular bridge OLA (STA)-AEAPMMS (APMES). Subsequently, ternary molecular complex systems with four molecular bridges OLA (STA)-AEAPMMS (APMES) and 2,2-bipyridyl (bipy) of lanthanides (terbium and europium) or zinc ions were assembled, which resulted in four novel kinds of quaternary molecular hybrid materials (named as bipy-Ln (Zn)-OLA (STA)-AEAPMMS (APMES) with strong chemical bonds (N-Ln(Zn)-O coordination bonds and Si-O covalent bonds) after a sol-gel (cohydrolysis and copolycondensation) process of the modified molecular bridges (as structural ligand) with inorganic precursor (tetraethoxysilane, TEOS). And especially bipy behaves as functional ligand to sensitize the luminescence of terbium or europium ions through the effective intramolecular energy transfer process, which gives rise to the characteristic emission of metal ions. The design and assembly from structural and functional ligands can help achieve a candidate technology for molecular hybrids.