Luminescent two- and three-dimensional zinc coordination polymers containing isomers of phenylenediacetate and a kinked tethering organodiimine

Hydrothermal synthesis has afforded a series of zinc-containing coordination polymers incorporating the kinked organodiimine 4,4'-dipyridylamine (dpa) and phenylenedi acetate (phda) isomers. {[Zn(1,4-phda)(dpa)] center dot H2O}(infinity) (1) manifests a two-dimensional (2D) corrugated layer morphology. While both {[Zn(1,2-phda)(dpa)]center dot 2H(2)O)(infinity) (2) and [Zn(I,3-phda)(dpa)](infinity) (3) contain three-dimensional 4-fold interpenetrated coordination polymer networks, 2 possesses the SrAl2 structure type (sra, 4(2) 6(3)8 topology) but the acentric material 3 adopts the diamond structure type (dia, 6(6) topology). The varying morphologies thus reveal a significant structure-directing effect of the position of the acetate groups during self-assembly of these coordination polymers. Hydrogen-bonding mechanisms imparted by the central amine group of the dpa ligand provide ancillary supramolecular structure-directing effects in all three cases. All three materials undergo blue-violet luminescence upon irradiation with ultraviolet light.