Amino acid-templated zinc phosphites: low-dimensional structures, fluorescence, and nonlinear optical properties.

Two new zinc phosphites were prepared using the amino acid alanine as a structure-directing agent. They have tubular and ladder-like structures, exhibiting blue fluorescence upon UV light irradiation. Notably, the tubular structure is unprecedented in metal phosphite systems. The compound is a nonlinear optically active solid with a second-harmonic generation efficiency of about 1.2 times that of KH2PO4 (KDP).