Understanding the photophysical properties of chiral dinuclear Re(i) complexes and the role of Re(i) in their complexes

Abstract

Chiral transition metal complexes not only have large nonlinear optical (NLO) response but also meet the non-centrosymmetric requirement of second-order NLO materials. Therefore, chiral transition metal complexes become very active in the NLO area. Recently, the second-order NLO response of chiral dinuclear Re(I) complex 2 has been found to be 1.5 times larger than that of KH₂PO₄ (KDP) based on experimental measurement. However, its NLO origin has not been determined and a structure–property relationship has not been established at the microscopic level, which are very important to further improve the performance. It is found that charge transfer from metal to ligand is mainly responsible for its NLO origin. Based on complex 2, the designed complexes have remarkably large second-order NLO activity. For instance, the designed complex 9 has a very large second-order NLO response value (115.81 × 10⁻³⁰ esu), which is about 668 times larger than the organic molecule urea. Moreover, time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) calculations have been used to investigate their UV-Vis/CD spectra. The simulated circular dichroism (CD) spectra of the complex 2 are in good agreement with the experimental ones, which can be used to assign the absolute configurations (ACs) of chiral dinuclear Re(I) complexes with high confidence. The electronic absorption wavelengths, electron transition properties, and the second-order NLO responses strongly depend on the nature of substituent, different ligands (pyridine and isoquinoline) and their combinations. Based on NBO analysis, the interactions between [Re(CO)₃Cl] fragments and ligands are of n → σ* character.