Substituent-Modulated Assembly Formation: An Approach to Enhancing the Photostability of Photoelectric-Sensitive Chalcogenide-Based Ion-Pair Hybrids.

A series of electronically active viologen dications (RV) with tunable substituent groups were utilized to hybridize with [Ge4S10]4- (T2 cluster) to form the hybrids of T2@RV. These hybrids exhibited variable supermolecular assembly formation, tunable optical absorption properties, and different photoelectric response under the influence of different RV dications. Raman testing and time-dependent photocurrent response indicated that the photosensitivity and photostability of T2@RV could be integrated while choosing suitable RV dications. Current research provides a general method to build a tunable hybrid system based on crystalline metal chalcogenide compounds through the replacement of photoinactive cationic organic templates with photoactive ones with different substituent groups.