Pressure-induced enhancements of luminescence intensities and lifetimes correlated with emitting-state distortions for thiocyanate and selenocyanate complexes of platinum(II) and palladium(II)

The luminescence properties of thiocyanate and selenocyanate platinum(II) and palladium(II) complexes show strong variations with temperature and pressure. The d-d luminescence band maxima for [Pt(SCN)(4)](PPh(4))(2) (1), [Pt(SCN)(4)](n-Bu(4)N)(2) (2), and [Pt(SeCN)(4)](n-Bu(4)N)(2) (4) complexes are centered at ca. 14500 cm(-1) whereas those of the [Pd(SCN)(4)](n-Bu(4)N)(2) (3) and [Pd(SeCN)(4)](n-Bu(4)N)(2) (5) complexes are approximately 2000 cm(-1) lower in energy. Low-temperature luminescence spectra from single-crystal samples have broad bands with highly resolved vibronic structure indicating large displacements of the emitting-state potential energy minimum along several metal-ligand normal coordinates. The largest displacements involve the totally symmetric (a(1g)) stretching modes with frequencies of 295 cm(-1) (1), 303 cm(-1) (2), 274 cm(-1) (3), 195 cm(-1) (4), and 185 cm(-1) (5). The lower frequencies of these dominant progression-forming modes for the selenocyanate complexes lead to luminescence bands that are narrower by ca. 500 cm(-1) (fwhm) than those observed from the thiocyanate complexes. Under external pressures, the room-temperature luminescence intensities and lifetimes show considerable enhancement at pressures up to 40 kbar. This effect is largest for the palladium(II) complexes with lifetimes increasing from approximately 350 ns at ambient pressure up to 62 micros at 30 kbar, an increase by more than 2 orders of magnitude. The platinum(II) complexes exhibit a significant, but noticeably lesser increase of luminescence lifetimes and intensities with increasing pressure. The temperature- and pressure-dependent luminescence decay behavior is rationalized using the emitting-state molecular geometry determined from the resolved low-temperature luminescence spectra combined with the strong-coupling limit of radiationless decay theory.