Isabelle M. Dixon, Fabienne Alary, Jean-Louis Heully
Transition metal complexes find numerous applications, e.g. for solar energy conversion, therapeutic photochemistry or as molecular sensors. Many such complexes are based on ruthenium(II) and display rich photoinduced properties related to the nature of the different excited states involved.
In view of saving natural resources, it is desirable to replace rare metals by ordinary ones. In this respect, iron could advantageously replace ruthenium for the aforementioned applications, provided one could cancel its intrinsic magnetic properties and exalt its photophysical properties. To reach this goal, strongly electron donating ligands may be used, particularly cyclometallating ligands. This project concerns the computational design of such complexes, upstream of any synthetic contribution from experimental collaborators.
This project has led to four publications :
Inorg. Chem. 2013, 52, 13369 link
Dalton Trans. 2014, 43, 15898 link
Dalton Trans. 2015, 44, 13498 and cover link
Inorg. Chem. 2016, 55, 5089 link