UV-vis absorption and picosecond time-resolved IR (TRIR) spectra of amido and phosphido complexes
fac-[Re(ER
2)(CO)
3(bpy)] (ER
2 = NHPh, NTol
2, PPh
2, bpy = 2,2'-bipyridine, Tol = 4-methylphenyl) were investigated inconjunction with DFT and TD-DFT calculations in order to understand their ground-state electronic structure, low-lying electronic transitions and excited-state character and dynamics. The HOMO is localized at the amido/phosphidoligand. Amide and phosphide ligands are
![](/images/gifchars/sigma.gif)
-bonded to Re, the
![](/images/gifchars/pi.gif)
interaction being negligible. Absorption spectrashow a weak band at low energies (1.7-2.1 eV) that arises from essentially pure ER
2 ![](/images/entities/rarr.gif)
bpy ligand-to-ligandcharge transfer (LLCT). The lowest excited state is the corresponding triplet,
3LLCT. Low triplet energies and largedistortions diminish the excited-state lifetimes to 85 and 270 ps for NHPh and NTol
2, respectively, and to ca. 30ps for PPh
2.
![](/images/gifchars/nu.gif)
(CO) vibrations undergo only very small (
![](/images/entities/le.gif)
10 cm
-1) shifts upon excitation, attesting to its LLCTcharacter, which hardly affects the electron-density distribution on the Re(CO)
3 moiety. Relaxation of the
3LLCTstate occurs with complex dynamics ranging from units to tens of picoseconds. The "pure" LLCT excitation, whichdoes not mix with the Re
![](/images/entities/rarr.gif)
bpy MLCT character, is a unique feature of the amido/phoshido complexes, whoselowest excited state can be viewed as containing a highly unusual aminyl/phosphinyl radical-cationic ligand. Forcomparison, the amino and phosphino complexes
fac-[Re(NHPh
2)(CO)
3(bpy)]
+ and
fac-[Re(PPh
3)(CO)
3(bpy)]
+ areshown to have the usual Re
![](/images/entities/rarr.gif)
bpy
3MLCT lowest excited states, characterized by upshifted
![](/images/gifchars/nu.gif)
(CO) bands.