posted on 2006-08-21, 00:00authored byQichun Zhang, Xianhui Bu, Lei Han, Pingyun Feng
A new open-framework indium sulfide ([In12S24H2]10-) constructed from pentasupertetrahedral sulfide clusters
([In8S17H],- P1) and supertetrahedral sulfide clusters ([In4S10H],- T2) has been prepared through hydrothermal
synthesis. Unlike previously reported P1 clusters that require divalent metal cations, the P1 cluster reported here
consists of only trivalent ions (In3+) and is the only known example of tetrahedral clusters with a core sulfur site
bonded to four trivalent ions. Each P1 cluster is joined to three T2 clusters (vice versa) to form an infinite two-dimensional sheet stacked along the crystallographic c-axis. In contrast with known three-dimensional open-framework
indium sulfides in which locations of extraframework amines are rarely known due to disorder, structure-directing
amine molecules are much less disordered as a result of host−guest N−H···S hydrogen bonding. The UV−vis
diffuse reflectance spectrum shows that this material is a wide band gap semiconductor.