Recent advances in polyoxometalate-containing molecular conductors

The recent advances in crystalline conducting molecular materials based on polyoxometalates (POMs) and organic donors of the tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) family or perylene are discussed. We emphasise the wide diversity of POM structural types and the variety of packing architectures for the organic molecules that can be induced by these inorganic anions. Besides structural effects, we show that these hybrids can have interesting electric and/or magnetic properties. Thus, in the last years the common belief that this type of radical salts containing such big and highly charged anions could only exhibit poor conducting properties has been refuted by the production of new materials exhibiting higher and higher conductivities and even metallic behavior down to very low temperatures. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.