Photophysical properties of endohedral amine-functionalized bis(phosphine) Pt(II) complexes as models for emissive metallacycles.

The photophysical properties of bis(phosphine) Pt(II) complexes constructed from 2,6-bis(pyrid-3-ylethynyl) aniline and 2,6-bis(pyrid-4-ylethynyl) aniline vary significantly, even though the complexes differ only in the position of the coordinating nitrogen. By capping the ligands with an aryl bis(phosphine) Pt(II) metal acceptor, the photophysical properties of the two isomeric systems were directly compared, revealing that the low-energy absorption and emission bands of the two systems were separated by 30 nm (1804 cm(-1)) and 39 nm (1692 cm(-1)), respectively. From the analysis of time-dependent density functional (TD-DFT) calculations and excited-state lifetime measurements, it was determined that the nature of the Pt-N bond in the HOMO and the sums of the radiative (k(rad)) and nonradiative (k(nr)) rate constants were significantly different in the two systems. As the dominant nonradiative decay pathway in aniline systems is relaxation from the triplet state through intersystem crossing (ISC), the difference in k(nr) can be ascribed to changes in ISC between isomers of the bis(phosphine) Pt(II)-capped 2,6-bis(pyrid-3-ylethynyl) aniline system. It was also determined that the photophysical properties of these capped systems can be altered by functionalizing the aryl capping ligand on the bis(phosphine) Pt(II) metal center, which perturbs the molecular orbitals involved in the observed optical transitions. In addition, an isoelectronic bis(phosphine) Pd(II)-capped system was prepared for comparison with the bis(phosphine) Pt(II) suite of complexes. The Pd(II) system showed significant changes in its low-energy absorption band, but preserved the characteristic emissive properties of its Pt(II) analogue with an even higher quantum yield.