Periodic non-oxide semiconductor-based organic-inorganic nanocomposites

The area of periodically arranged organic-inorganic nanocomposites (OINCs) prepared by self-assembly in the presence of organic molecules underwent dramatic growth. Compared with large amounts of heavy research on the oxide-based materials, such as silicate-base materials, non-oxide-based OINCs, metal-chalcogenide-based OINCs, are particularly much more attractive. Although the considerable challenge of the construction of non-oxide analogues which is caused by the unstable precursor anions and poor understanding of their condensation behavior in solution, metal-chalcogenide-based OINCs offer new potential opportunities in materials sciences, photo-electric conversion, photocatalysis, separation, and environmental remediation. All the reported metal-chalcogenide-based OINCs can be regarded as periodically arranged organic-inorganic nanocomposites, and divided into two categories according to the size of the periodically repeated units: (1) mesostructured (2-50 nm) surfactant-chalcogenide OINCs, and (2) microstructured (< 2 nm) open-framework organic molecule-chalcogenide OINCs. This article reviews the current state of the art in chemical synthesis, characterization, and applications of the mesostructured (2-50 nm) surfactant-chalcogenide OINCs.