Development of Precisely Controlled Structures Containing Main Group Elements for Preparing Superatoms

This review summarizes our recent studies of main group elements of boron, aluminum, gallium and bismuth units with dendrimer templates. Stepwise assembly of bismuth salts realized tunable photoluminescent materials according to the introduced amounts. Solid-state emission and switching of optical properties were demonstrated by using a shell-effect of the dendrimer. BH3 species placed in the dendrimer acted as a reductant in the nanosized space to form size-controlled metal particles. Atomicity control for AlCl3 or GaCl3 enabled a solution-phase synthesis of superatoms, which have been expected to be new building blocks for materials.