Influence and Substituent Effects on the HOMO-LUMO Energy Gap and Stokes Shift in Ru Mono-Diimine Derivatives.

The ground (S) and excited triplet (T) electronic states and corresponding optical spectra of a series of cationic complexes [RuH(CO)L(PPh)] (L=2,2´-bipyridyl) (Rubpy), 4,4´-dicarboxylic-2,2´-bipyridyl (Rudcbpy), bis-4,4'-(N-methylamide)-2,2´-bipyridyl (Rudamidebpy), bis-4,4'-(methyl)-2,2´-bipyridyl (RudMebpy), [Ru(CO)dcbpy(PPh)] (Ru(2CO)dcbpy), and [Ru(H)dcbpy(PPh)] (Ru(2H)dcbpy) have been studied by combined Density Functional/Time-Dependent Density Functional (DFT/TDDFT) techniques using different combinations of DFT exchange-correlation functionals and basis sets. PBE0/LANL2DZ provided more accurate geometries to describe S whereas B3LYP/LANL2DZ predicted spectral energies that correlated better with the available experiment data. The Ru (II) complexes with different substituents emit photons ranging from 560-610 nm in the series RudMebpy, Rubpy, Rudamidebpy, Rudcbpy. The calculations predicted a maximum emission at about 540 nm for the complex constructed from two carbonyl π-acceptors ligands to the dcbpy, while an emission in the far infrared region is calculated when two H σ-donor ligands to the dcbpy. Our calculation results show correlations between HOMO-LUMO energy gap, Stokes shift, and T distortion, which reflect the different effects of electron-withdrawing and donating groups. We proposed that these correlations can be used to predict the photophysical properties for new complexes.