Electrically addressable metal-organic framework optical crystals for tunable photonic components in quantum technologies

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are emerging as tunable optical materials because they combine crystalline order, optical transparency, and chemical design flexibility. Many reported nonlinear optical demonstrations with MOF crystals are passive, motivating proof-of-concept studies of whether transparent MOF optical crystals can exhibit reversible field-responsive behavior. We demonstrated a qualitative proof-of-concept measurement showing that transparent MIRO-101 MOF crystals can exhibit reversible field-responsive optical behavior under an applied electric field. In a benchtop crossed-polarizer transmission experiment, a polarized visible probe beam was transmitted through a MIRO-101 crystal while an external electric field was applied, and changes in the transmitted optical pattern were monitored. Representative optical features in the transmitted pattern showed reversible changes during repeated electrical cycling. The observed optical response was reversible within the tested proof-of-concept regime, with no visible crystal damage observed. These results support MIRO-101 as an electrically responsive, optically transparent MOF platform for materials-level studies of field-tunable photonics. Field-responsive MOF crystals may offer a materials pathway toward electrically tunable optical materials and future reconfigurable photonic components. The limitations of this qualitative proof-of-concept and the next steps required for calibrated photonic-device studies are discussed.