Correlation of structure and solid state emission properties of anionic copper(I) halide complexes

The correlation of emission properties with structural characteristics of solid state copper (I) halide complexes, supported by ab initio calculations, has been the focus of this work. Twenty-four new anionic Cu (I)---iodide complexes with alkali and alkaline earth metals complexed crown ethers as cations have been synthesized and characterized by single crystal diffraction.;The complexes belong to 4 different groups: (1) Cu2I 42-, (2) Cu4I6 2-, (3) polymeric CupIq-(q-p) species and (4) simple iodides. The first two groups emit at room temperature when excited in the ultraviolet. The wavelength of maximum emission varies with the symmetry elements present in the crystalline cluster. Four different Cu2I42-rhombs were seen: (1) flat with a center of symmetry---452--453 nm; (2) bent---675 nm (640 nm---shoulder); (3) 2/m symmetry---479 nm and (4) a mixture of flat and bent---474--478 (with long wavelength tail). Ab initio calculations identified the electronic transition, responsible for excitation of the centrosymmetric cluster Cu2I4 2- to be: 26 (Au) → 29 or 31 (Ag) followed by reemission to the ground state. For the bent cluster the corresponding electron transition are HOMO (26) → LUMO (27) for excitation and HOMO (26) → LUMO (27) for emission. The energy gap between these neighboring orbitals is smaller than that for complexes of type I, which explains the relative position of bands in luminescence spectra. Mixed complexes (type 4), containing both types of Cu2I42- units, possess an asymmetrical emission band comprised of both type 1 and type 2 bands.;Three hexaiodotetracuprates(I), emitting at 519--524 nm, possess a crystallographic center of symmetry in the center of disordered cluster. While the disorder results in centrosymmetric species, the emitting tetrahedron Cu4I6 is not centrosymmetric. There are no forbidden transitions for this motif.;Nine polymeric species (Cu2I3-, Cu 4I6-2 and Cu5I7 -2) are non-emitting at both ambient and low temperature. Short Cu...Cu distances (2.38--2.45 A), shorter than those seen in copper metal, are presumed to raise the energy level of LUMO or change orbital contributions to HOMO and/or LUMO such that emission not seen in visible.