Photoluminescence of Lanthanide-Titanium-Oxo Clusters Eu9Ti2 and Tb9Ti2 Based on a β-Diketone Ligand

Inorg Chem. 2022 Jul 4;61(26):9849-9854. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.2c01411. Epub 2022 Jun 22.

Abstract

A series of acetylacetone-protected lanthanide-titanium-oxo clusters (LTOCs), formulated as [La6Ti(μ3-OH)8(acac)12(CH3O)2(CH3OH)6] (La6Ti; Hacac = acetylacetone) and [Ln9Ti24-O)(μ3-OH)14(acac)17(CH3O)2(CH3OH)3] [Ln = Eu (Eu9Ti2) and Tb (Tb9Ti2)], were synthesized through the reactions of LnCl3·6H2O (Ln = La, Eu, and Tb), Hacac, Ti(OiPr)4, and triethylamine in methanol. Crystal structural analysis shows that La6Ti exhibits an hourglass-like structure consisting of two La3Ti cubane subunits by sharing one Ti4+ ion, while Eu9Ti2 can be viewed as a combination of four Eu3Ti cubane subunits by sharing three corners and one side. The photoluminescence (PL) measurements show that Tb9Ti2 exhibits excellent PL properties with a high quantum yield (QY) of 34.8%, while Eu9Ti2 only has a QY of 1.4% because of the different photosensitizations of ligands to Eu3+ and Tb3+ ions in the photophysical process.