Adsorption-low temperature pyrolysis of dodecacarbonyltriruthenium leads to the formation of small Ru NPs on carbon toward effective hydrogen evolution.

RbSbSO4Cl2 exhibits a strong SHG response originating from the synergistic effect of three coexisting constituting asymmetric chromophores.

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Two new antimony sulfate chlorides named (NH4)2SbCl­(SO4)2 and (NH4)­SbCl2(SO4) were successfully synthesized through solvent-free synthesis method. (NH4)2SbCl­(SO4)2 exhibits a three-dimensional framework constructed of [SbCl­(SO4)2]2– chains and NH4 + ions. And the NH4 + cations play the role of charge balance and provide the hydrogen bond constructed with oxygen atoms. (NH4)­SbCl2(SO4) shows a two-dimensional layer structure that is composed of the regularly stacked [SbCl2(SO4)]− chains via hydrogen-bonding interactions. Both of the titled compounds possess the same chemical composition and the similar Sb–Cl–SO4 chains, while hydrogen-bonding interactions and lone-pair cations play the synergistic effect on the framework structures and macroscopic centricities resulting in that the (NH4)2SbCl­(SO4)2 is centrosymmetric and the (NH4)­SbCl2(SO4) is non-centrosymmetric (NCS). Powder second harmonic generation (SHG) measurements indicated that the NCS compound (NH4)­SbCl2(SO4) is type I phase-matchable and exhibits SHG responses of ∼1.7 times that of KH2PO4.

Birefringent materials with large optical anisotropy, which can be used to modulate the polarization of light, play a key role in laser techniques and science. However, the exploration studies of new, superior birefringent materials develop extremely slowly due to the lack of effective guidelines for rational design. Herein, three antimony(III) fluoride oxalates, namely, Na 2 Sb 2 (C 2 O 4 )F 6 , K 2 Sb 2 (C 2 O 4 )F 6 , and Cs 2 Sb 2 -(C 2 O 4 ) 2 F 4 •H 2 O, were successfully synthesized through a rational combination of π-conjugated C 2 O 4 2− anions and Sb 3+ cations with stereochemically active lone pairs. These oxalates feature unique quasi-one-dimensional chain structures that induce large optical anisotropy. Remarkably, Cs 2 Sb 2 (C 2 O 4 ) 2 -F 4 •H 2 O exhibits the largest birefringence (0.325@546 nm) among all reported antimony(III)-based oxysalts. Detailed structural analysis and theoretical calculations confirmed that the optical anisotropy of these oxalates could be tuned through the synergetic interactions of templated cations and anionic functional groups. This work may open the door to efficiently designing excellent birefringent materials and guide the further discovery of other novel structure-driven functional materials.