Ir^III as a strategy for preorganisation in H-bonded motifs

ABSTRACT

We report how four sets of thiourea-based heterodimers interact, and how incorporation of a metal centre imparts reduced degrees of rotational freedom. Through single-crystal X-ray diffraction, ¹H NMR, and UV-vis analysis, the interactions of these systems are dissected and presented. These motifs are considered to be stable and desirable for supramolecular hydrogen-bonded functional materials. Interpretation of the structural design of thiourea-based ligand and its incorporation into metal complexes can contribute to the understanding of preorganised self-assembly and open new pathways in design of novel soft materials. This work also contributes to the unexplored library of hydrogen-bonded metal complexes based on iridium. As such we examined the photoluminescence of the system of general formula [Ir(C^N)₂(N^S)] and the effect of hydrogen bonding on the emission properties when combined with different n-heteroacenes.

Graphical abstract

KEYWORDS:

• self-assembly
• molecular recognition
• second-sphere coordination

Acknowledgments

BAB is grateful for financial support from University of New Brunswick, New Brunswick Foundation for Innovation (NBIF), and the Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC - RGPIN-2018-04021).

Data Availability

The raw data which underpins this work is openly available in the University of New Brunswick Libraries’ research data repository Dataverse at https://doi.org/10.25545/WHD3KC.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

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Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [RGPIN-2018-04021].