Coordination Complexes of P‑Containing Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons: Optical Properties and Solid-State Supramolecular Assembly

A series of complexes including σ3,λ3-P-modified polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) as a ligand have been prepared showing that the ligand possesses a classical “phosphine-like” reactivity. The use of different metals (Pd­(II), Cu­(I), Re­(I), Au­(I)) having different coordination number allows tuning the optical properties of the complexes, which is dominated basically by the electronic transitions of the ligand itself. The study of the solid-state properties by mean of X-ray diffraction also shows that the combination of coordination chemistry and π-stacking interactions between the PAH ligand allows obtaining a great diversity of solid-state structures.