Reports a novel ferroelectric semiconductor demonstrating unique optical properties over a wide temperature range, suggesting new applications in optoelectronics.
Wide-bandgap molecular ferroelectric semiconductors are emerging as critical candidates for next-generation multifunctional optoelectronics, yet integrating robust ferroelectricity with a wide optical bandgap remains a formidable challenge. Herein, we report a zero-dimensional organic–inorganic hybrid ferroelectric semiconductor, [FMeQ]2ZnI4 (FMeQ = N-fluoromethyl-quinuclidine), constructed via a targeted cation fluorination strategy. This compound crystallizes in the polar orthorhombic space group Pna21 and exhibits a wide indirect bandgap of approximately 3.65 eV, comparable to traditional inorganic semiconductors like GaN. Remarkably, [FMeQ]2ZnI4 undergoes two sequential reversible order–disorder phase transitions at 306 and 336 K, endowing the material with a unique two-step switchable second harmonic generation (SHG) response over a wide temperature range. Electronic structure analysis reveals an effective decoupling mechanism where the inorganic [ZnI4]2– anion dominates the wide bandgap, while the dynamic organic cation dictates the ferroelectricity. This discovery provides an alternative approach to explore wide-bandgap molecular ferroelectrics, especially ferroelectric semiconductors with high-performance multistate optical switching capabilities.
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Zhong et al. (2026) studied this question.
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