Electronic Structures of Substituted Osmanaphthalynes and Related Metallacycles in Donor-Bridge-Acceptor Systems

Chemistry of transition metal-containing aromatics has attracted considerable attention both experimentally and theoretically. A number of stable metal heteroaromatics, including metallabenzene, metallafuran, metallabenzyne, metallapyridine, metallanaphthalene, metallanaphthalyne, metallapentalynes, metallapentalenes and their derivatives have been successfully isolated and characterized in the past decades. Over the past few years, researchers mainly focused on the study of their reactivity. Nonetheless, other special features have also been reported gradually, for example, optical and magnetic properties. Electrochemical studies of metallacycles are still rather limited. Searching for promising novel photoelectric materials that display intriguing electrochemical and photophysical properties and are potentially useful for applications in molecular electronics, information storage, charge-transporting, light absorption and solar cells, this project will focus on hybrid donor-bridge-acceptor (D-B-A) triads featuring the osmanaphthalyne metallacycle (B-A) substituted with diverse donor groups. The study of their molecular and electronic structures, spectroscopic and electrochemical propertie, will offer detailed understanding of the charge transfer characteristics in these metal−organic D−B−A systems. Theoretical studies will rationalize the spectroscopic and spectro-electrochemical observations.