Luminescent complexes made from chelating isocyanide ligands and earth-abundant metals.

In this invited frontier article, recently discovered d and d complexes with long-lived metal-to-ligand charge transfer (MLCT) excited states are highlighted. Chelating diisocyanide ligands give access to emissive Mo(0) and Cr(0) complexes with d electron configuration exhibiting photophysical properties similar to those of Ru(ii) polypyridines or cyclometalated Ir(iii) complexes. With Ni(0), these ligands yield luminescent tetrahedral d complexes similar to isoelectronic Cu(i) bis(diimine) compounds.