Organometallic platinum(II) photosensitisers that demonstrate ligand-modulated triplet-triplet annihilation energy upconversion efficiencies

A series of 2-phenylquinoxaline ligands have been synthesised that introduce either CF3 or OCF3 electron-withdrawing groups at different positions of the phenyl ring. These ligands were investigated as cyclometalating reagents for platinum(II) to give neutral complexes of the form [Pt(C^N)(acac)] (in which C^N=cyclometalating ligand; acac=acetyl acetonate). X-ray crystallographic studies on three examples showed that the complexes adopt an approximate square planar geometry. All examples revealed strong Pt−Pt linear contacts of 3.2041(6), 3.2199(3) and 3.2586(2) Å. The highly coloured complexes display efficient visible absorption at 400–500 nm (ϵ ≈5000 M−1 cm−1) and orange red photoluminescent characteristics (λem=603–620 nm; Φem ≤37 %), which were subtly tuned by the ligand. Triplet emitting character was confirmed by microsecond luminescence lifetimes and the photogeneration of singlet oxygen with quantum efficiencies up to 57 %. Each complex was investigated as a photosensitiser for triplet–triplet annihilation energy upconversion using 9,10-diphenylanthracene as the annihilator species: a range of good upconversion efficiencies (ΦUC 5.9–14.1 %) were observed and shown to be strongly influenced by the ligand structure in each case.