Electronic structures and optical properties of neutral substituted fluorene-based cyclometalated platinum(II)-acetylide complexes: A DFT exploration

We report a combinational DFT and TD-DFT study of the electronic and optical properties of several tridentate cyclometalated mononuclear [Pt(C^N^N)(CCR)] (1-3), [Pt(C^N^N)(CCRCCH)] (4), and dinuclear [Pt(C^N^N)(CCRCC)Pt(C^N^N)] (5 (C₂ symmetry) and 5′ (C_s symmetry)) platinum(II) complexes with σ-acetylide ligand bearing fluorene substituents, where HC^N^N = 6-aryl-2,2′-bipyridine, R = fluorene-2,7-diyl 1, 4, 5 and 5′, R = 9,9-dimethylfluorene-2,7-diyl 2, R = 9,9-diethylfluorene-2,7-diyl 3. The structural and electronic properties of the ground- and lowest triplet state and the EA and IP values of the complexes are discussed. It is found that all of the lowest-lying absorptions are categorized as the LLCT combined with the MLCT transitions. The oscillator strengths of the lowest energy absorptions get a remarkable enhancement for the dinuclear complexes 5 and 5′compared to 1-4 due to the increase of electronic delocalization on the more planar molecular geometry. In general, the phosphorescent emissions of these complexes in CH₂Cl₂ are the reverse process of their lowest energy absorption transitions, except that of 4 is assigned as ³[π∗−π]/³MLCT transition because of the strengthened electronic localization effect and the interaction with the solvent in the lowest triplet state. In addition, these complexes hold promise as a new kind of nonlinear optical material owing to their large static first hyperpolarizabilities (β₀). The β₀ value has increased in the dinuclear complexes in contrast to those of the mononuclear ones owing to their larger transition moment and smaller transition energy.