An ESCA investigation of some copper complexes

A series of copper complexes have been investigated by ESCA. All complexes were salts of the tetraphenylphosphonium ion. The binding energies of all the atoms in the complexes were determined. From the binding energies of the ligand atoms we estimated the effective charges on these atoms. For this purpose we used linear relations of the formE_b = kq + E_bO which had been established previously within our scheme of C 1s (phenyl) as internal standard. From the data thus obtained, the effective charge on the copper atom was estimated. A linear relation between binding energy and the effective charge on the copper atom was found, i.e.,E_b(Cu) = 1.52q_Cu + 932.2ESCA spectra were recorded for the complexes bis(1,3-diphenyl-1,3-propanediono) copper (II) and bis(3-phenyl-2,4-pentanediono) copper (II). By a combination of the XPS binding energies and IR intensities of the ν_CH vibrations of the phenyl groups in the complexes with empirical relations between these entities and the effective charges of the atoms and groups, a fairly complete mapping of the charge distributions of these complexes has been achieved.