Crystalline lanthanide compounds have broad application
prospects
in the field of photoelectric properties. In this paper, we report
the surfactant-thermal method to prepare three novel lanthanide chalcogenidostannates,
[Eu(trien)(tren)(Cl)]2Eu2Sn2S9·H2O (1) (trien = triethylenetetramine,
tren = tris(2-aminoethyl) amine), [Nd(trien)2Cl]HgSnSe4 (2), and [Sm(trien)(tren)Cl]Hg2SnSe5 (3), by applying poly(ethylene glycol)-400 (PEG-400) as the reaction medium. 1 crystallizes
in the orthorhombic crystal system Pmmn, whereas 2 crystallizes in Pna21 in the
noncentrosymmetric orthorhombic space group, and powder second-harmonic-generation
(SHG) measurement reveals that the SHG response exhibited by compound 2 is roughly half as intense as that observed in AgGaS2, and 3 crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal
system P21/m. 1 is the first example of Eu3+ ions being introduced into
a purely inorganic skeleton; in 2 and 3,
the transition metal (TM) ion Hg2+ is incorporated into
the [Sn
x
Q
y
]
n− (Q = S/Se) system to form
complex TM-chalcogenidostannate anions. 1, 2, and 3 exhibit band gaps of 2.13, 2.01, and 1.98 eV,
respectively. Notably, all three compounds display impressive photocurrent
densities, with compound 3 standing out with a density
of 54 μA/cm2. Compounds 1–3 showed remarkable photodegradation of methyl blue (MB),
especially compound 3, which had a degradation efficiency
of 61.1%. To gain a deeper understanding of the correlation between
their optical properties and their electronic structures, theoretical
calculations were conducted.