Inkjet printing of adamantane-type organotin sulfide clusters featuring extreme nonlinear optical properties

Inkjet printing has emerged as a powerful technique for manufacturing metals, metal oxides or nanoparticles and is stimulating the research on electronic and data storage devices, light-emitting diodes, and even photovoltaics. Usually, such inks either contain metal salts or nanoparticles. More complex compounds, like hybrid inorganic-organic cluster molecules, would allow for even more versatile and tailor-made properties of the printed materials. However, poor solubility, thermal lability or water sensitivity prohibited inkjet processing of such compounds to date. Here we show that the well-soluble and robust cluster compound [{(4-n-pentyl-phenyl)Sn}4S6] (pentyl: C5H11; phenyl: C6H5), of which amorphous bulk material exhibits white-light generation upon infrared-laser diode irradiation. The compound allows formulation into inks for inkjet printing without affecting the clusters’ identity and controlled deposition in well-defined micro-structured patterns. Besides the proof-of-principle for printing complex structures with tailor-made optical responses, the deposited material is soluble in common solvents for potential reuse. We envision that these hybrid cluster-based inks will pave the way to printable optical information storage devices.