Microporous and mesoporous electronic materials: Flexible open-framework nanomaterials for molecular recognition, towards the electronic nose

A novel class of flexible open-framework microporous tin(IV) chalcogenide electronic materials is described, whose structure-property relationships are sensitive to the identity and loading of the imbibed molecular guests, The discovery of these materials could represent an important step towards the practical realization of an abiological electronic nose, The inorganic character of their open-framework structures and the compositional tunability of their electronic band structures, makes these molecular recognition host-guest inclusion electronic materials, potentially integratable into transistor and diode array type chemoselective devices, The research briefly described in this paper, demonstrates that certain key elements, considered to be central to the development of molecule discriminating sensors, have now been brought to practice with the nanoporous tin(IV) chalcogenide class of materials. A natural extension of this work has led to the discovery of novel mesoporous forms of these materials.