A facile route to ultra-long bis(8-hydroxyquinoline) magnesium nanoribbons and the fabrication of photoswitch

Large-scale and high-purity bis(8-hydroxyquinoline) magnesium nanoribbons with an average width of 125 nm, a thickness of 25 nm, and a length up to several hundreds of micrometers, were synthesized via a facile solvothermal route. The room-temperature photoluminescence spectrum of the products showed a strong and stable blue–green emission centered at 482 nm under excitation at 378 nm. And the as-prepared nanoribbons exhibited linear current–voltage characteristics and excellent photoresponse. As the light source was switched on and off, the currents could be reversibly switched between high and low values at a voltage of 0.1 V, which might be useful in the fabrication of photosensor and photoswitch microdevices or nanodevices in the future.