furans and trisubstituted pyrroles that possess an aryl sulfanyl or alkyl sulfanyl substituent at C3 has been developed.

A new tetragonal (P42(1)2) crystalline form of [Cr8F8Piv16] (HPiv = pivalic acid, trimethyl acetic acid) is reported. The ring-shaped molecules, which are aligned in a parallel fashion in the unit cell, form almost perfectly planar, regular octagons. The interaction between the CrIII ions is antiferromagnetic (J = 12 cm(-1)) which results in a S = 0 spin ground state. The low-lying spin excited states were investigated by cantilever torque magnetometry (CTM) and high-frequency EPR (HFEPR). The compound shows hard-axis anisotropy. The axial zero-field splitting (ZFS) parameters of the first two spin excited states (S = 1 and S = 2, respectively) are D1 = 1.59(3) cm(-1) or 1.63 cm(-1) (from CTM and HFEPR, respectively) and D2 = 0.37 cm(-1) (from HFEPR). The dipolar contributions to the ZFS of the S = 1 and S = 2 spin states were calculated with the point dipolar approximation. These contributions proved to be less than the combined single-ion contributions. Angular overlap model calculations that used parameters obtained from the electronic absorption spectrum, showed that the unique axis of the single-ion ZFS is at an angle of 19.3(1) degrees with respect to the ring axis. The excellent agreement between the experimental and the theoretical results show the validity of the used methods for the analysis of the magnetic anisotropy in antiferromagnetic CrIII rings.

Photoactive metal complexes employing Earth‐abundant metal ions are a key to sustainable photophysical and photochemical applications. We exploit the effects of an inversion center and ligand non‐innocence to tune the luminescence and photochemistry of the excited state of the [CrN6] chromophore [Cr(tpe)2]3+ with close to octahedral symmetry (tpe=1,1,1‐tris(pyrid‐2‐yl)ethane). [Cr(tpe)2]3+ exhibits the longest luminescence lifetime (τ=4500 μs) reported up to date for a molecular polypyridyl chromium(III) complex together with a very high luminescence quantum yield of Φ=8.2 % at room temperature in fluid solution. Furthermore, the tpe ligands in [Cr(tpe)2]3+ are redox non‐innocent, leading to reversible reductive chemistry. The excited state redox potential and lifetime of [Cr(tpe)2]3+ surpass those of the classical photosensitizer [Ru(bpy)3]2+ (bpy=2,2′‐bipyridine) enabling energy transfer (to oxygen) and photoredox processes (with azulene and tri(n‐butyl)amine).

Gaining chemical control over the thermodynamics and kinetics of photoexcited states is paramount to an efficient and sustainable utilization of photoactive transition metal complexes in a plethora of technologies. In contrast to energies of charge transfer states described by spatially separated orbitals, the energies of spin-flip states cannot straightforwardly be predicted as Pauli repulsion and the nephelauxetic effect play key roles. Guided by multireference quantum chemical calculations, we report a novel highly luminescent spin-flip emitter with a quantum chemically predicted blue-shifted luminescence. The spin-flip emission band of the chromium complex [Cr­(bpmp)2]3+ (bpmp = 2,6-bis­(2-pyridyl­methyl)­pyridine) shifted to higher energy from ca. 780 nm observed for known highly emissive chromium­(III) complexes to 709 nm. The photoluminescence quantum yields climb to 20%, and very long excited state lifetimes in the millisecond range are achieved at room temperature in acidic D2O solution. Partial ligand deuteration increases the quantum yield to 25%. The high excited state energy of [Cr­(bpmp)2]3+ and its facile reduction to [Cr­(bpmp)2]2+ result in a high excited state redox potential. The ligand’s methylene bridge acts as a Brønsted acid quenching the luminescence at high pH. Combined with a pH-insensitive chromium­(III) emitter, ratiometric optical pH sensing is achieved with single wavelength excitation. The photophysical and ground state properties (quantum yield, lifetime, redox potential, and acid/base) of this spin-flip complex incorporating an earth-abundant metal surpass those of the classical precious metal [Ru­(α-diimine)3]2+ charge transfer complexes, which are commonly employed in optical sensing and photo­(redox) catalysis, underlining the bright future of these molecular ruby analogues.

Luminescence from Earth-abundant metal ions in solution at room temperature is a very challenging objective due to the intrinsically weak ligand field splitting of first row transition metal ions, which leads to efficient non-radiative deactivation via metal-centered states. Only a handful of 3d n metal complexes (n ≠ 10) show sizeable luminescence at room temperature. Luminescence in the near-infrared spectral region is even more difficult to achieve as further non-radiative pathways come into play. No Earth-abundant first-row transition metal complexes display emission > 1000 nm at room temperature in solution up to now. Here we report the vanadium(III) complex mer-[V(ddpd) 2 ][PF 6 ] 3 yielding phosphorescence around 1100 nm in valeronitrile glass at 77 K as well as at room temperature in acetonitrile with 1.810 -4 % quantum yield (ddpd = N,N '-dimethyl-N,N'-dipyridine-2-ylpyridine-2,6-diamine). In addition, mer-[V(ddpd) 2 ][PF 6 ] 3 shows very strong blue fluorescence with 2 % quantum yield in acetonitrile at room temperature. Our comprehensive study demonstrates that vanadium(III) complexes with d 2 electron configuration constitute a new class of blue and NIR-II luminophores, which complement the classical established complexes of expensive precious metals and rare-earth elements.