A deep insight of the photoluminescence property changes of Cd(II)-based metal-organic framework induced by an aeolotropic structure transition under high pressure

Themetal-organic framework (MOF) materials could exhibit advanced applications in many fields and their mechanical stability upon external stimuli is extremely important for the applications. Here, we discovered a Cd(II)-based metal-organic framework (Cd-MOF) exhibits a very high structural stability and the Cd-MOF structure remains stable and reversible upon compression up to at least 28 GPa, a pressure that has never been reported before. Moreover, this Cd-MOF material shows an obvious change in the photoluminescence (PL) emission upon compression, which has blue-green luminance at ambient conditions, while the blue emission is preserved but the green emission is quenched at above 5 GPa. This transition in PL emission is due to a pressure-induced framework transition, which is caused by an anisotropic compression of Cd-MOF framework under pressure, as revealed by our theoretical simulations. Our results show that such highly stable MOF framework could exhibit a potential for applications under extreme conditions as a novel optical material.