Due to their tunable photoreactivity and light absorbing properties, organometallic iridium(III) complexes are used in a wide variety of applications such as phosphorescent dopants in organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), chemical sensing, light harvesting for solar cells, and photodynamic therapy. Our team is particularly interested in their non-linear optical (NLO) properties such as reverse saturable absorption (RSA). To obtain optimally performing materials for RSA we utilize our systematic process, The ARL RSA Material Development Loop, to design, synthesize, and characterize organometallic iridium(III) complexes that exhibit panchromatic absorption in the ground state and excited state, with the aim of generating panchromatic RSA agents. To demonstrate this process, a series of iridium(III) complexes with structure [IrIII(C^N)2(acac)]0 (where acac = acetylacetonate and C^N = 2-phenylquinoline, 2,4-diphenylquinoline, 6-nitro-2-phenylquinoline, or 6-nitro-2,4-diphenylquinoline) were synthesized and chemically characterized via 1H NMR, ESI-MS, and single crystal crystallography. The photophysical properties were investigated with UV-Vis absorption, emission, and transient absorption spectroscopy. Computational chemistry was performed to better understand the differences between the molecules in the series. The chemical characterization, photophysical properties, computational results, and future directions will be discussed herein.

Systematic optimization of novel iridium(III) acetylacetonate bisphenylquinoline complexes for non-linear optical (NLO) properties

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