Alkaline earth metal Atom-Doped Aza-Single-Strand pyridine Helix M@SP-Helix (M = Be, Mg, and Ca) as high-performance candidates for Single-Molecular redox SPDT NLO molecular switches

Abstract

Redox molecular switch is undoubted to be a good choice for the requirement of terminal molecular device. By doping an alkaline earth metal atom into the aza-single-strand pyridine helical ligand to form M@SP-Helix (M = Be, Mg, and Ca), the alkaline earth metal atom not only act the role of providing two electrons but also the type of them can significantly affect the distribution region of every two electrons on SP-Helix in the in the redox process. Our results found that the electronic and vibrational static first hyperpolarizabilities as well as the frequency-dependent first hyperpolarizability exhibit high-performance single-pole double-throw (SPDT) nonlinear optics (NLO) switching effects from its oxidized state (off form) to neutral (on form) and to reduced states (on form) as obtaining four electrons by twice. Notably, the electronic first hyperpolarizability is increased approximately 1003- and 1.34 × 106-fold from 35 to 3.51 × 104 and 4.69 × 107 au for Ca@SP-Helix. Therefore, this work can provide a theoretical reference that the alkaline earth atom doping is an important method to design high-performance NLO molecular switch material.