Structures and properties of functional metal iodates

Abstract

Metal iodates with a lone-pair containing I(V) that is in an asymmetric coordination geometry can form a diversity of unusual structures and many of them are promising new second homonic generation (SHG) materials. They exhibit wide transparency wavelength regions, large SHG coefficients and high optical-damage thresholds as well as moderately high thermal stability. In this paper, the structures and properties of the metal iodates are reviewed. The combination of d0 transition-metal cations with the iodate groups afforded a large number of metal iodates, with cations covering alkali metal, alkaline earth and lanthanide elements. Many of them are noncentrosymmetric (NCS) and display excellent SHG properties due to the additive effects of polarizations from both types of the asymmetric units. Some lanthanide iodates are able to emit strong luminescence in the visible or near-IR regions. The use of transition metal ions with d n (n ≠ 0) electronic configuration into iodate systems can also induce the formation of NCS compounds when the lone pairs of the iodate groups are properly aligned. The d n transition metal cations are normally octahedrally coordinated or in a square-planar coordination geometry. Furthermore, the combination of two different types of lone-pair-containing cations is also an effective strategy to design new SHG materials.