Tracking the Metal-Centered Triplet in Photoinduced Spin Crossover of Fe(phen)32+ with Tabletop Femtosecond M-edge XANES

12 June 2019, Version 1
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

Fe(II) coordination complexes are promising alternatives to Ru(II) and Ir(III) chromophores for photoredox chemistry and solar energy conversion, but rapid deactivation of the initial metal-to-ligand charge transfer (MLCT) state to low-lying (d,d) states limits their performance. Relaxation to a 5T2g state is postulated to occur via a metal-centered triplet state, but this mechanism remains controversial. We use femtosecond extreme ultraviolet (XUV) transient absorption spectroscopy to measure the excited-state relaxation of Fe(phen)32+ and conclusively identify a 3T intermediate that forms in 170 fs and decays to a vibrationally hot 5T2g state in 40 fs. The shape of this M2,3-edge X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectrum is sensitive to the electronic structure of the metal center, and the high spin sensitivity, fast time resolution, and tabletop convenience of XUV transient absorption make it a powerful new tool for measuring the complex photophysics of transition metal complexes.

Keywords

XUV
Spin Crossover
M-edge XANES
High-Harmonic Generation

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