Achieving the birefringence-bandgap trade-off: Hydrogen-bond engineered biuret-cyanurate

Ziqi Chen, Miriding Mutailipu*

Chin. J. Struct. Chem., 2025, 44(10), 100695. DOI: 10.1016/j.cjsc.2025.100695

October 15, 2025

Birefringence; π-conjugated group; Hydrogen bonding; Optical anisotropy

ABSTRACT

Birefringent materials play a crucial role in light polarization, with important applications in fiber-optic communications. However, developing such materials for the solar-blind region and shorter wavelengths remains challenging due to the inherent trade-off between birefringence and bandgap. In this work, we introduce a strategic assembly of cyanuric rings with biuret units—the latter identified for the first time as a birefringence-active motif—resulting in two new compounds: [H5C2N3O2][H3C3N3O3] (1) and [H5C2N3O2][H3C3N3O3]·xH2O (x ≈ 0.43) (2). Through hydrogen bonding-driven structural optimization, compound 2 achieves a 50% increase in birefringence (Δn = 0.403 @ 546 nm) compared to 1, while retaining a short cutoff edge of 208 nm. This advancement demonstrates that hydrogen-bond-guided structural design, combined with novel functional units, can overcome the traditional birefringence-bandgap conflict, opening new possibilities for short-wavelength birefringent materials with strong optical anisotropy.

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