Large-Area Metal–Organic Framework Glasses for Efficient X-Ray Detection

Cutting-edge techniques utilizing continuous films made from pure, novel semiconductive materials offer promising pathways to achieve high performance and cost-effectiveness for X-ray detection. Semiconductive metal–organic framework (MOF) glass films are known for their remarkably smooth surface morphology, straightforward synthesis, and capability for large-area fabrication, presenting a new direction for high-performance X-ray detectors. Here, a novel material centered on MOF glasses for highly uniform glass film fabrication customized for X-ray detection is introduced. MOF glasses, composed of zinc and imidazole derivatives, enable the transition from solid to liquid at low temperatures, facilitating the straightforward preparation of large-area and continuous MOF films with high mobility for X-ray device fabrication. Remarkably, MOF glass detectors demonstrate an exceptional sensitivity of 112.8 µC Gy_air⁻¹ cm⁻² and a detection limit of 0.41 µGy_air s⁻¹, making them one of the most sensitive and with the best detection limits reported to date for MOF X-ray detectors. Clear X-ray images are successfully conducted using these developed MOF glass detectors for the first time. This breakthrough in X-ray sensitivity, and detection limit along with the spatial imaging resolution establishes a new standard for developing large-area and efficient MOF-based X-ray detectors with practical applications in medical and security screening.