Direct Visualization of Energy-transferred Excited State in Eu Complex

Highly luminescent lanthanide (Ln) complexes have attracted much attention because Ln³⁺ ions show long-lived ff-emissions with narrow band shape. Their unique photo-optical properties are promising for the design of light-emitting materials and sensing devices. Although the ff-emissions are essentially weak because of Laporte forbidden, chelate ligands is effective to strengthen the intramolecular energy transfer from photo-excited organic ligands to Ln³⁺ ions. The direct evidence of energy transfer from ligands to Ln³⁺ and details of excited state, however, are still veiled. Here, we report direct visualization of energy-transferred excited state in Eu complex with a hexadentate ligand (L) consisting of two bipyridine moieties bridged by an ethylendiamine unit, [Eu³⁺(L)(NO₃)₂](PF₆) (Eu(L))[1] by Maximum Entropy Method (MEM) charge density[2] and electrostatic potential analysis[3] based on SR X-ray diffraction. First, we confirmed that the electron numbers of Eu and ligand L in the excited state are the same as those in the ground state, which is a direct evidence of energy transfer instead of charge transfer. Next, we observed charge re-distribution in the Eu ion and the ligand L. The electrostatic potential distributions calculated using MEM charge density give an experimental evidence for the existence of polarization of ligand L both in the ground and photo-excited states. The orientation polarization in the ground state changed during pumping at 315 nm, and the charge re-distribution are qualitatively consistent with a theoretical prediction. This characteristic luminescence behavior based on the energy relaxation process have not been detected by fundamental crystal structural analysis. We have succeeded in visualization of subtle but important change due to energy transfer in the mononuclear Europium complex with hexadentate ligand at the first time.

Crystal Structure and Dielectric Property of Endohedral Lithium Fullerene

Endohedral lithium fullerene Li+@C60 can have a dielectric polarization by the off-centered location of the Li+ cation inside the C60 cage. The x-ray structure analysis of the PF6- salt [Li@C60](PF6) revealed that the Li+ cation occupies two off-centered equivalent positions at 20 K and hence the crystal is non-polar [1]. The disordered structure at low temperature is explained by a static orientation disorder of polar Li+@C60 cations and/or a dynamic tunneling of the Li+ cation inside the C60 cage. The Li+ tunneling would be suppressed by an intermolecular interaction at lower temperature and a dielectric phase transition might be induced. We reveal the dielectric property and crystal structure of [Li@C60](PF6) below 20 K in this study. The temperature dependence of the dielectric permittivity was measured for the single crystal down to 9 K. The dielectric permittivity increases with decreasing temperature according to the Curie-Weiss law. Such a behavior was also observed in H2O@C60 crystal but not in empty C60 crystal [2]. No dielectric phase transition was observed in H2O@C60 down to 8 K. In contrast, a dielectric anomaly suggesting a phase transition was observed in [Li@C60](PF6) around 18 K. The single-crystal x-ray diffraction experiment below 20 K was also performed at SPring-8 BL02B1. The crystal has a cubic structure at 20 K [1]. The temperature dependence of the cubic lattice constant shows no anomaly around 18 K. However, diffraction peaks that are forbidden for the given structure appear below 18 K. Thus the crystal symmetry is lowered by the dielectric phase transition. We present the result of the crystal structure analysis of the newly discovered low-temperature phase.

Hirshfeld atom refinement for modelling strong hydrogen bonds

Different X-ray refinement methods for modelling hydrogen bonds in the compound L-phenylalaninium hydrogen maleate are compared. It is found that Hirshfeld atom refinement (HAR) produces bond lengths involving hydrogen atoms in agreement with benchmarking results from neutron diffraction, and it is the only X-ray method to obtain a symmetric hydrogen site in the intramolecular hydrogen bond of this compound. Residual-density distributions in HAR are better than in the multipole-based models.

Magnetic structure and 5d-electronic state in a pyrochlore iridate Eu₂Ir₂O₇

The pyrochlore-type iridium oxide Eu2Ir2O7 exhibits a metal-insulator transition at 120 K, accompanied by magnetic ordering. We performed resonant x-ray scattering (RXS) experiment with photon energies near the iridium absorption edge L3 to investigate the arrangement of Ir4+ magnetic moments. Magnetic RXS was observed in the insulating phase, providing direct evidence of long-range ordering of Ir4+ magnetic moments with a propagation vector of (4n+2 0 0) . Our single-crystal structure analysis revealed that the lattice retains its face-centered-cubic structure across the metal-insulator transition, indicating all-in-all-out magnetic order, where all the magnetic moments on the four vertices of each Ir4+ tetrahedron point inward or outward as shown in Fig. 1 [1]. To investigate the 5d-electronic state of Ir4+, we performed resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) experiment near the L3 edge. Obtained RIXS spectra indicate that the 5d-electronic state is affected by not only the spin-orbit interaction but also trigonal distortion of IrO6 octahedron [2].