Computational studies on the photophysical properties and NMR fluxionality of the tetranuclear copper(I) complexes [Cu4(mu-dppm)4(mu4-E)]2+ (E = PPh and S)

Density functional theory (DFT) calculations at the hybrid Perdew, Burke, and Ernzerhof functional level were performed to study the electronic structures of the ground and excited states of the luminescent tetranuclear copper(I) complexes [Cu4(mu-dppm)4(mu4-E)]2+ [E = PPh (1) and S (2)] by using model complexes [Cu4(mu-H2PCH2PH2)4(mu4-E)]2+ [E = PPh (1a) and S (2a)]. The time-dependent DFT method at the same level associated with the conductor-like polarizable continuum model was used to study the nature of the low-energy transitions in their electronic absorption spectra. The results indicate that the lowest energy absorptions of both 1 and 2 are attributed to ligand-to-metal charge-transfer (LMCT) (E --> Cu4) with mixing of metal-cluster-centered (MCC) (3d --> 4s/3d --> 4p) singlet-singlet transitions. The geometry optimizations on the lowest energy triplet state reveal that the emissive states of both complexes involve a considerable structural distortion in which they are derived predominantly from an admixture of 3LMCT (E --> Cu4) and 3MCC (3d --> 4p) origin. In addition to the photophysical properties, the fluxional behavior of 2 observed from the NMR studies but not that of 1 was investigated. It is found that the fluxionality in 2 involves the shuttling of the sulfido ligand through the rectangular Cu4 core.