Highly Selective Chemical Sensing in a Luminescent Nanoporous Magnet

Among the wide variety of properties of interest that a given material can exhibit, luminescence is attracting an increasing attention due to its potential application in optical devices for lighting equipment and optical storage, [ 1a − c] optical switching, [ 1d ,e] and sensing. [ 1f − i ] At this respect, many scientists, working in the multidisciplinary fi eld of the materials science, have directed their efforts to the obtention of luminescent materials with potential sensing applications. For instance, sensitive and selective detection of gas and vapor phase analytes can result specially interesting because of the variety of applications that can be found in many different fi elds. A key principle concerning the luminescent chemosensors [ 2 ] is that they must be able to detect differences between small molecules, [ 2 , 3 ] and sequentially implement a recognition– transduction protocol. [ 2b ] In this sense, the remarkable shape selectivity of a class of highly porous materials, the so-called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) [ 4 ] which have already shown applications in different fi elds (gas storage and separation, molecular recognition and catalysis, molecular electronics and spintronics, molecular photonics, etc) [ 4–6 ] has converted them in excellent candidates for the fabrication of chemical sensors. [ 2 , 3 ] The key point responsible for the high potential success of MOFs as chemo-sensors is the exceptional tunability of their structures and properties.