While a number of highly luminescent copper(I) halide based hybrid materials built on coordinate bonds (Cu-L; L = N, P, S-based ligands) have been obtained, the poor structural stability largely limited their commercialization. In contrast, according to the previous studies, the ionic structures (L-free) are more stable than those built on Cu-L coordinate bonds. However, the extremely weak emission hinders their optical applications. Herein, we report a tetra-alkylammonium-cation-induced strategy for the synthesis of stable and highly luminescent ionic CuBr-based hybrid materials. It is interesting to find that the tetra-alkylammonium cations with different chains could induce diverse CuBr-based anions. Moreover, most of these CuBr-based hybrids are highly luminescent, which makes them promising candidates as an alternative to phosphors and with potential applications in sensing.
Keywords: amines sensing; copper(I) bromide; copper(I) halide clusters; hybrids materials; tetra-alkylammonium cation.