Metal diimine-dithiolene complexes mixed-ligand

With rich luminescent properties, long-lived CT excited states and a variety of bimolecular photochemical reaction pathways, the mixed-ligand square-planar diimine dithiolene complexes of d8 metal ions show great promise for solar-energy conversion, as luminescent probes or in photocatalytic applications. Complexes of this type have also received attention for the nonlinear optical properties, such as second harmonic generation, related to the MMLL CT excited state (14, 129). 

These complexes are redox active. The two one-electron reductions resemble more closely the reduction of the corresponding bis(diimine) complex than those of the corresponding bis(dithiolene) complex. The redox potentials are more sensitive to diimine ligand variation than to dithiolene variation. One-electron oxidation is relatively insensitive to diimine ligand variation. However, the dependence of one-electron oxidation on dithiolene variation has not been assessed directly due to the limited amount of data available on the oxidation of the corresponding dithiolene complexes. It has been proposed that the LUMO of the neutral mixed-dithiolene diimine complexes possesses more diimine than dithiolene character and that the HOMO is mainly metal d orbital in nature (52). 

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