Stereochemical influences on intervalence charge transfer in homodinuclear complexes of ruthenium

Abstract

The synthesis of polynuclear transition metal assemblies and their electrochemical, photochemical, and photophysical properties have attracted significant recent interest; this has been motivated largely by the potential of multicomponent systems as a basis of novel applicable materials.1 However, the existence of the stereochemical complexities inherent in such systems, and their influence on intramolecular energy- and electrontransfer processes, has not always been acknowledged^2.

Work in our laboratory has established synthetic methodologies for the isolation of the stereoisomers of a variety of mono-, di-, and trinuclear complexes^2,3. Significantly, this work has given rise to the first three examples of differences in the spectral, electrochemical, and photophysical properties of stereoisomers in such assemblies^2,4.