Luminescent lanthanide materials are well known to possess considerable utility as optical signal amplifiers, chemical sensors, and other electroluminescent devices. These applications arise from the unique photophysical properties of the trivalent lanthanide ions. Although excitation of the metal frontier orbital electrons is parity forbidden, sensitization using organic ligands as light harvesting “antennae” has proved useful in harnessing the potential emissive properties of the rare earths. In our pursuit to develop novel luminescent lanthanide materials, 2-thiophenecarboxylic acid (TMC) has been employed and shows the ability to form various structural motifs when coordinated to Ln(III) ions. Additionally, the use of a capping ligand was found to control the dimensionality of the resulting compounds. When TMC alone is used as the coordinating ligand, an isomorphous series of the fourteen lanthanide ions (La-Lu) is produced. Further, heterometallic analogues of these structures containing europium and terbium provide a means to achieve color tuning of emission from red through orange and yellow to green. Introduction of terpyridine to the reaction mixture as a capping ligand disrupts the polymeric network, resulting in dimeric structural units from lanthanum to holmium, and monomeric structural units from erbium to lutetium. The synthesis, characterization, and structure-property relationships observed in these materials will be presented.

Synthesis and luminescent behavior of lanthanide thiophenemonocarboxylate-based materials

254th National Meeting (2017)

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