Cu(I) hybrid inorganic–organic materials with intriguing stimuli responsive and optoelectronic properties

The continuous search for hybrid inorganic–organic compounds to be used in a variety of applications points obviously to the abundant, cheap, and environmental friendly copper. Cu(I) complexes exhibit a high structural diversity and are emissive with several classes of ligands with properties varying markedly with structure and environment. Solid state materials that display reversible stimuli-responsive emission are attracting considerable attention because of their basic science interest and potential applications in sensors, displays, and memory fields. While the photochemical and photophysical properties of Cu(I) complexes and clusters have been extensively studied, their optoelectronic characterization in view of second order non linear optical and electroluminescent applications has been performed more recently. However, the excellent results so far obtained in studies concerning OLED devices based on some highly stable Cu(I) complexes have proved the great potentiality of these materials in low cost flat panel displays and solid state lighting technologies. This review gathers the literature concerning stimuli responsive, electroluminescent and second order non linear optical studies on Cu(I) compounds published up to late 2014.