Structural Investigation of Nanostructured Magnetic Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Material: A case study

Conformational control in synthesizing organic-inorganic hybrids has a significant effect on the chemical-physical properties. Hence, precise identification of the spatial organization of nanoscopic organic-inorganic materials is an important goal in materials science. Organic-inorganic hybrids are often obtained as amorphous materials and this precludes their characterization through X-Ray single crystal diffraction. Hybrid materials also suffer from high sensitivity to radiation damage, thus rendering the interpretation of experimental results arduous. An overview of existing methods and tools for structural investigations of nanostructured materials and highlights of their limitations will be given here as well as an attempt to overcome these difficulties. In this regard an amorphous hybrid canted antiferromagnet, i.e. Nickel(II) 1,4:5,8-Naphthalenediimide bisphosphonate,[1] has been investigated by combining Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDXD) diffraction with cryo-transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM) techniques. The measurements have been supported by theoretical simulations in order to determine the 3D structure of the organic-inorganic network.[2] This nanostructured hybrid system is organized in a few ordered layers. The inorganic part is connected by strong interactions, while the organic layers are stacked in a herringbone-type molecular arrangement via weak interactions. The ensemble forms an highly ordered nanostructured object with parallelepiped shape and the single nano-objects display disordered aggregations.