AMoO3(IO3) (A = Na and K): Two promising optical materials via properly assembling the A-shaped basic building units

Herein, we reported two alkali metal molybdenum(VI) iodates, namely, NaMoO3(IO3) and gamma-KMoO3(IO3) with 1D and 3D [MoO3(IO3)]- anionic architectures, respectively. The novel 1D chain in NaMoO3(IO3) and the 3D network in gamma-KMoO3(IO3) are constructed by the 0D A-shaped cis-[MoO4(IO3)2]4- building units interconnected by bridging IO3- anions as well as the corner-sharing of oxo anions. Importantly, the polar gamma-KMoO3(IO3) exhibits a very large second-harmonic generation (SHG) effect of 12 x KH2PO4 (KDP) under 1064 nm laser radiation, a high laser-Induced damage threshold value (52 x AgGaS2), and a moderate birefringence of 0.087@1064 nm, whereas the centrosymmetric NaMoO3(IO3) has a large birefringence of 0.208@1064 nm. This study further proves the useful route of exploring promising optical materials via assembling the 0D basic building units into higher dimensional anionic architectures. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.