Aggregation-induced phosphorescent emission enhancement (AIPEE) Re(I) complexes: Synthesize, photophysical and theoretical simulations

Suzuki-coupling reaction was applied in this article to synthesize three Re(I) complexes of Re(CO)(3)(NN) Br, where NN = 2,9-di(4-methyl phenyl)-1,10-phenanthroline (Re-1), 2,9-di(3,5-(diphenyl)phenyl)-1,10-phenanthroline (Re-2), 2,9-di(4-(triphenylsilyl)phenyl)-1,10-phenanthroline (Re-3), respectively. The maxima of the photoluminescent spectra of Re-1 similar to Re-3 in THF (10(-5) mol/L) and aggregation state mainly center at ca. 400 nm and ca. 570 nm, respectively. The excited-state decay lifetimes of the powder samples were ca. 0.77 mu s, ca. 1.30 mu s and ca. 1.01 mu s for Re-1, Re-2, and Re-3, respectively. These results suggest that Re-1 similar to Re-3 have the aggregation-induced phosphorescent emission enhancement character. Furthermore, the density functional theory was applied at the B3LYP/(LANL2Dz+6-31G) level to theoretically analysize the character of the frontier molecular orbitals of Re-1 similar to Re-3. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.