Complexes of the lanthanide ions display sharp luminescent emission emanating from f-f transitions on the metal center. The sharpness of the emission peaks originates from the shielding of the 4f orbitals by the 5s and 5p shells and leads to high color purity of emission without the need to filter the emission. These materials have garnered interest for many applications including incorporation into light-emitting diodes. For this application, the emissive lanthanide materials are attractive because theoretical emissive quantum yields of 100% are possible. Very high quantum yields are possible due to the ability of the lanthanide ions to harvest energy from both the singlet and triplet excited states of the donor ligand for light emission. Unfortunately, direct excitation of the lanthanide emission is spin and parity forbidden, which necessitates the use of an antenna ligand to absorb light and transfer energy to the metal ion from ligand-centered excited states. Ideal antenna ligands utilize a conjugated organic backbone with multiple coordination sites to effectively bind the Ln(III) ion in addition to having the appropriate donor excited-state energy level to sensitive metal-centered emission. Present work in our research group has focused on developing a new class of bis(isoxazolyl)pyridine ligands. In some cases these ligands are appended with electropolymerizable thiophene moieties to allow the lanthanide complexes to be incorporated into conducting metallopolymer materials. The design, synthesis, characterization and photophysical properties of these ligands and the corresponding lanthanide complexes will be presented.

Emissive electropolymerizable lanthanide complexes

249th National Meeting (2015)

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