To provide new insights for understanding the influence
of B site
cations on the structure in chlorometallate materials of the form
AB
n+Cl
n+2,
we report novel organic–inorganic hybrid metallates (OIHMs)
incorporating histammonium (HistNH3) dications and various
transition-metal and main group B site cations. Single crystals of
OIHMs with the basic formula (HistNH3M
n+Cl
n+2, M = Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn,
Cd, Hg, Sb, Sn, Pb, Bi) were grown and their structures characterized
by single-crystal X-ray crystallography. HistNH3CoCl4, HistNH3ZnCl4, and HistNH3SbCl5 were crystallized in a non-centrosymmetric space
group and were subsequently studied with piezoresponse force microscopy
(PFM). While bulk measurements of crystals and poly(vinylidene difluoride)
(PVDF)/metallate composite films exhibited low bulk response values,
the surface-measured local response values using PFM were 5.17 pm/V
for HistNH3CoCl4, 22.6 pm/V for HistNH3ZnCl4, and 2.9 pm/V for HistNH3SbCl5 compared with 2.50 pm/V for PVDF reference samples. The magnitudes
of the d
33 coefficient, net dipole, and
cation–Cl bond dipole obtained from the density functional
theory calculations confirm the higher response in HistNH3ZnCl4 compared to HistNH3CoCl4.
Density of states and crystal orbital Hamilton population analysis
indicate that the higher net dipole in HistNH3ZnCl4 compared to HistNH3CoCl4 is due to
the lower hybridization of the M–Cl bond.