The Assembly of Unique Hexanuclear Copper(I) Complexes with Effective White Luminescence

Inorg Chem. 2019 Jan 22;58(2):1048-1057. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.8b01862. Epub 2019 Jan 2.

Abstract

The unique L2Cu6I6 complexes containing two Cu3I3 units have been obtained via reaction of 1,5-diaza-3,7-diphosphacyclooctanes bearing ethylpyridyl substituents at phosphorus atoms with an excess of copper iodide. The structure of one of the complexes was confirmed by X-ray diffraction. It was shown that the complexes can exist in two crystalline phases with different parameters of the unit cell, which were detected by the PXRD data analyses. The solvent-free crystalline phases of the complexes display rare solid-state white emission at room temperature, which is observed due to the presence of two broad bands in the emission spectra with maxima at 464 and 610 nm. Quantum chemical computations show that the high-energy band has 3(M+X)LCT origin, whereas the low-energy band is interpreted as 3CC. The quantum yields of white luminescence of complexes reach 15-20%.