Cyclopentadienyl-metal complexes dicyclopentadienyls

Two classes of material will be described here - the metal dithiolenes and rare earth metallocenes. In the metal dithiolenes a strong, low energy pi-pi transistion occurs in the near IR (9.10). This can be tuned from about 700 nm to 1400 nm by altering the metal ion, substituents or charge state of the dithiolene. The dithiolenes are particularly attractive because of their optical stability which has been exploited in their use as laser Q-switch materials. In the rare earth complexes the near IR band is provided by/-/transistions of the rare earth ion rather than the cyclopentadienyl ring structure various nonlinear optical phenomena have been observed in glasses incorporating similar ions. Previous studies have shown that dicyclopentadienyl complexes such as ferrocene have off-resonant nonlinearities similar to nitrobenzene or carbon disulphide (11-13)... 

Many 7i-cyclopentadienyl complexes may be prepared from the reaction of alkali metal cyclopentadienides with ammonia-soluble transition metal salts such as nitrates and thiocyanates in liquid ammonia (2-30). The amine complexes, [M(NH3) ] (C5H5)2, lose ammonia when heated in vacuo, and the uncharged dicyclopentadienyl complexes of iron, cobalt, nickel, chromium, and manganese are obtained. 

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