Ionic liquids and ionic solids as functional materials with tuneable optical and electrical properties

Ionic liquids are now established as an interesting and highly diverse class of materials with interesting application profiles in chemistry, biology, and engineering. Over the last decade, we have established halidometallates as interesting and highly versatile building blocks for the design of ionic liquids and ionic solids with often highly specific properties. Examples include materials with tunable band gaps or materials with tunable (mostly ionic) conductivities in both the liquid and the solid state. The presentation will highlight some examples and demonstrate how the combination of specific metals with specific anions (halides in the current case) affect the color, the band gap, and the electrochemical properties. Moreover, the presentation will also show how zwitterion-based ionic liquids can be used for ion transport and for the electrodeposition of technologocally relevant lements.