The Observation of Interchain Motion in Self-Assembled Crystalline Platinum(II) Complexes: An Exquisite Case but By No Means the Only One in Molecular Solids

In organic and organometallic solids, upon electronic excitation, most intermolecular structural relaxations follow a pathway along the pi-pi stacking direction or metal-metal bond with significant coupling strength. Differently, we discovered that the self-assembled platinum(II) complexes, Pt(fppz)(2), exhibit an unusual interchain contraction. The ground-state and excited-state multiple local minima were distinguished by temperaturedependent excitation/emission spectra, indicating the existence of multiple local minima. The time-resolved emission decay revealed the excited-state structural relaxation lifetime with tau(obs) = 41 ns at 298 K. Temperature-dependent X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the packing geometries contract 0.6 angstrom along the interchain direction (a-axis) at 50 K compared to the geometries at 298 K. Such structural displacements render the slow internal conversion rate in the excited states. We thus demonstrate the correlation between the packing geometries and the excited-state dynamics of the self-assembled Pt(II) complexes, shedding light on the unique direction of interchain structural deformation of the molecular aggregates.

Automated summary

Through temperature-dependent spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis, we found that self-assembled platinum(II) complexes exhibit a unique direction of interchain structural deformation in the excited states, leading to slow internal conversion rates.