Infrared Dynamics of Iron Carbonyl Diene Complexes

Vibrational dynamics of iron pentacarbonyl in cryogenic matrices

Iron pentacarbonyl is a textbook example of fluxionality. We trap the molecule in cryogenic matrices to study the vibrational dynamics of CO stretching modes involved in the fluxional rearrangement. The infrared spectrum in Ar and N₂ is composed of about ten narrow bands in the spectral range of interest, indicating the population of various lattice sites and a lowering of the molecular symmetry in the trapping sites. The vibrational dynamics is explored by means of infrared stimulated photon echoes at the femtosecond scale. Vibrational dephasing and population relaxation times are obtained. The non-linear signals exhibit strong oscillations useful to disentangle the site composition of the absorption spectrum. The population relaxation involves at least two characteristic times. An evolution of the photon echo signals with the waiting time is observed. The behavior of all the signals can be reproduced within a simple model that describes the population relaxation occurring in two steps: relaxation of v = 1 (population time T₁ < 100 ps) and return to v = 0 (recovery time > 1 ns). These two steps explain the evolution of the oscillations with the waiting time in the photon echo signals. These results discard fluxional rearrangement on the time scale of hundreds of ps in our samples. Dephasing times are of the same order of magnitude as T₁: dephasing processes due to the matrix environment are rather inefficient. The photon echo experiments also reveal that intermolecular resonant vibrational energy transfers between guest molecules occur at the hundreds of ps time scale in concentrated samples (guest/host > 10⁴).

Steric and electronic control of an ultrafast isomerization

Synthetic control of the influence of steric and electronic factors on the ultrafast (picosecond) isomerization of penta-coordinate ruthenium dithietene complexes (Ru((CF3)2C2S2)(CO)(L)2, where L = a monodentate phosphine ligand) is reported. Seven new ruthenium dithietene complexes were prepared and characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction. The complexes are all square pyramidal and differ only in the axial vs. equatorial coordination of the carbonyl ligand. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to study the ν(CO) bandshapes of the complexes in solution, and these reveal rapid exchange between two or three isomers of each complex. Isomerization is proposed to follow a Berry psuedorotation-like mechanism where a metastable, trigonal bipyramidal (TBP) intermediate is observed spectroscopically. Electronic tuning of the phosphine ligands L = PPh3, P((p-Me)Ph)3, ((p-Cl)Ph)3, at constant cone angle is found to have little effect on the kinetics or thermodynamic stabilities of the axial, equatorial and TBP isomers of the differently substituted complexes. Steric tuning of the phosphine ligands over a range of phosphine cone angles (135 < θ < 165°) has a profound impact on the isomerization process, and in the limit of greatest steric bulk, the axial isomer is not observable. Temperature dependence of the FTIR spectra was used to obtain the relative thermodynamic stabilities of the different isomers of each of the seven ruthenium dithietene complexes. This study details how ligand steric effects can be used to direct the solution state dynamics on the picosecond time scale of discrete isomers energetically separated by <2.2 kcal mol-1. This work provides the most detailed description to date of ultrafast isomerization in the ground states of transition metal complexes.