Herein some examples of the use of lanthanide ions (f-metal ions) to direct the synthesis of luminescent self-assembly systems (architectures) will be discussed. This area of lanthanide supramolecular chemistry is fast growing, thanks to the unique physical (magnetic and luminescent) and coordination properties of the lanthanides, which are often transferred to the resulting supermolecule. The emphasis herein will be on systems that are luminescent, and hence, generated by using either visibly emitting ions (such as Eu(III), Tb(III) and Sm(III)) or near infrared emitting ions (like Nd(III), Yb(III) and Er(III)), formed through the use of templating chemistry, by employing structurally simple ligands, possessing oxygen and nitrogen coordinating moieties. As the lanthanides have high coordination requirements, their use often allows for the formation of coordination compounds and supramolecular systems such as bundles, grids, helicates and interlocked molecules that are not synthetically accessible through the use of other commonly used templating ions such as transition metal ions. Hence, the use of the rare-earth metal ions can lead to the formation of unique and stable species in both solution and in the solid state, as well as functional and responsive structures.

The delafossite structured CuCrO 2 system is well known as one of the best performing p-type transparent conducting oxides. In this paper the details of a low temperature facile growth method for CuCrO 2 is described. The dependence of the growth on the precursors, the temperature and oxygen partial pressure are examined. The decomposition routes are critical to obtain the best performing films. The thermopower and electrical measurements indicate p-type films with conductivity ranging from 1-12 Scm −1 depending on the growth conditions. This p-type conductivity is retained despite the nanocrystallinity of the films. The figure of merit of these films can be as high as 350 µS, which is the best performing p-type TCO by solution methods to date. The optical properties are also investigated using ellipsometry and UV-Vis spectroscopy.

Epitaxial p-type transparent conducting oxide (TCO) Cr 2 O 3 :Mg was grown by electron-beam evaporation in a molecular beam epitaxy system on c-plane sapphire. The influence of Mg dopants and the oxygen partial pressure were investigated by thermoelectric and electrical measurements. The conduction mechanism is analyzed using the small-polaron hopping model, and hopping activation energies have been determined, which vary with doping concentration in the range of 210-300 ± 5 meV. Films with better conductivity were obtained by postannealing. The effect of postannealing is discussed in terms of a crystallographic reordering of the Mg dopant. The highest Seebeck mobilities obtained from thermoelectric measurements are of the order of 10 −4 cm 2 V −1 s −1 . We investigate the fundamental properties of a Mg dopant in a high crystalline quality epitaxial film of a binary oxide, helping us understand the role of short range crystallographic order in a p-type TCO in detail.