Chiroptical Spectroscopic Studies on Lanthanide Complexes with Valinamide Derivatives in Solution

Ligands based on 2,2’-bipyridine and valinamide moieties induce circularly polarized luminescence in their europium complexes. Both the R and S enantiomers of the complexes were successfully obtained. Single-crystal X-ray analysis of the racemic crystal confirmed that the ligand is coordinated to the europium ion in a tetradentate fashion. The π-electronic system of the ligand is co-planar with the valinamide moiety, and acts as an efficient photoantenna to sensitize europium luminescence by UV excitation. The luminescence quantum yield (QY) of europium in the valinamide-containing complex was 44 % in acetonitrile. The g_lum value to evaluate the circularly polarized luminescence was relatively high at |0.13| estimated from their magnetic dipole transitions around 593 nm. For comparison, we prepared hexadentate europium complexes in the S- and R-forms derived from two bipyridine moieties linked by ethylenediamines. The determined QYs were 18 % (S) and 16 % (R), and the g_lum value |0.12| for the hexadentate complexes. The photophysical properties of the gadolinium complexes of the ligands were also evaluated.