Self-Healing Antibacterial Metallosupramolecular Soft-Networks: Comparative Studies on Mechanical Flexibility and Semiconducting Device Applications

Mn(II)/Ni(II)-salts and 2,5-pyridinedicarboxylic acid (PDA)-based individual supramolecular metallogels (i.e., Mn-PDA and Ni-PDA) are achieved by maintaining specific stoichiometric ratios of distinct metal salts and PDA (i.e., 1:1). 2,5-Pyridinedicarboxylic acid acts as a low-molecular-weight organogelator, and N, N ′-dimethylformamide (DMF) is used as a gel-immobilized polar aprotic solvent. Mechanical flexibility, morphology, stimuli-responsiveness, and formation strategy of metallogels are explored. Semiconductor p–n junction of both the metallogels Ni-PDA and Mn-PDA with p-type silicon (p-Si) was investigated in this study. Both Ni-PDA/p-Si and Mn-PDA/p-Si photodetectors effectively exhibit superior semiconducting behavior with low ideality factors (η) of 1.4 and 1.8, respectively, under dark conditions and ON/OFF ratios of 8 and 4.2 at a reverse bias voltage of −2 V for Ni-PDA, and Mn-PDA, respectively. Interestingly, the Ni-PDA/p-Si device shows a higher optical responsivity. Electrical performance of Au/Ni-PDA/Au and Au/Mn-PDA/Au strategy-based Schottky diode photodetectors was also explored, and the photosensitivity (%) of these two different Schottky devices is accounted as ∼102 and ∼1100, respectively. Synthesized metallogels are efficiently potent against pathogenic Gram + ve and −ve bacteria. Both of these metallogels show different levels of effectiveness against individual bacterial strains. Thus, the work might be an excellent example of getting bioelectronic-type flexible self-healing materials for future applications.