The
photobehavior of com
plexes of the ty
pe Pt(diimine)(mes)
2 is investigated (where diimine = 2,2'-bi
pyridine(b
py), 1,10-
phenanthroline (
phen), 3,4,7,8-tetramethyl-1,10-
phenanthroline (tm
p), 2,9-dimethyl-1,10-
phenanthroline(2,9-dm
p), 5,6-dimethyl-1,10-
phenanthroline (5,6-dm
p), and 4,7-di
phenyl-1,10-
phenanthroline (d
pp) and mes =the mesityl (2,4,6-trimethyl
phenyl) anion). For all com
pounds studied, solution RT emission is observed to beweak and excited-state lifetimes are found to be short (
20 ns) regardless of solvent choice. Evidence is
presentedfor energy-transfer quenching of Pt(d
pp)(mes)
2 luminescence in toluene by dissolved O
2 (
primarily
producingsinglet oxygen) with an observed quenching rate constant of
kq 1.3 × 10
9 M
-1 s
-1. Electron-transfer quenchingis also observed in the
presence of 3,5-dinitrobenzonitrile, yielding a quenching rate constant of
kq 1.6 × 10
9M
-1 s
-1. The latter observation suggests that these Pt(II) systems may have future value as excited-state reductants.All of the com
plexes dis
play a much more intense and longer-lived luminescence in the solid state at roomtem
perature. Several
possible ex
planations for this de
pendence on
phase are
pro
posed, with the most
probablemechanism involving radiationless deactivation in solution via rotation of the
o-methyl grou
ps of the mesitylligands.