Maddalena Binda, Enrico Podda, Vito Lippolis, Lucia Ambrosio, M. Carla Aragoni, Francesco Isaia, Dario Natali, Giammarco Meloni, Anna Pintus, Simon J. Coles, Massimiliano Arca, Michael B. Hursthouse, Marco Sampietro, and James B. Orton
Metal bis(1,2-dithiolene) complexes belonging to the class [Ni(Ar-edt)2]x- [Ar-edt2- = arylethylene-1,2-dithiolate; Ar = phenyl, (1x-), 2-naphthyl (2x-); x = 0 and 1] were fully characterized by NMR, UV-visible-near-infrared (UV-vis-NIR), diffuse reflectance, and FT-IR spectroscopy, as well as cyclic voltammetry and single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. These complexes have emerged as new photoconducting materials that allowed for the development of a prototype of photodetectors with response in the vis-NIR region. The photodetecting devices showed in some cases quantum efficiencies orders of magnitude higher than those of previously reported 1,2-dithiolene systems.