Circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) spectroscopy is the emission analogue to circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy. 1 It is common to report the degree of CPL in terms of the luminescence dissymmetry factor, g lum (λ), which is defined as follows: g lum (λ) = 2ΔI/I = 2 (I L -I R )/(I L + I R ), where I L and I R refer respectively to the intensity of left and right circularly polarized emissions. A value of 0 for g lum corresponds to no circular polarization, while the absolute maximum value is 2. Although the development of useful correlation between CPL spectrum and chiral structure is still limited, 1 a study by Bruce et al. 2 conducted on welldefined DOTA-based macrocyclic Eu(III) complexes led to the following conclusion. The sign and magnitude of CPL are affected by the degree of helical twist of the complex, the nature of the ligand field, and the axial donor group solvation. Of special importance is that the CPL will reflect the time-averaged local helicity around the lanthanide(III) ion (i.e. the magnitude of g lum values increases with an increase in the degree of conformational rigidity of the complex).To date, the largest g lum value reported in the literature was for the commercially available NMR shift reagent tris(3-trifluoroacetyl-(+)-camphorato)europium(III), [Eu((+)-facam) 3 ], in dry DMSO (g lum value of -0.78 at 588.2 nm), 3,4 whereas lanthanidecontaining systems with chiral 2-hydroxyisophthalamide-, pyridyl diamide-,1-hydroxy-2-pyridinone-, or DOTA-based ligand derivatives exhibited g lum values as high as 0.5. 1,4-8 Recently, we reported on the isolation and structural characterization of sodium or cesium tetrakis(3-heptafluorobutylryl-(+)-camphorato) lanthanide(III) complexes, M I [Ln((+)-hfbc) 4 ], by X-ray analysis and/or CD spectroscopy. The solution structure is supposed to take a square antiprism eight coordination (SAPR-8) with Δ-configurational chirality on the basis of the exciton CD spectra. 9,10 In this communication, the CPL as well as CD of M I [Eu((+)-hfbc) 4 ] complexes (M I = Cs and Na) in CHCl 3 and EtOH were examined in order to reveal the detailed chiral configuration in solution. Of special interest is the importance of using CPL for selectively studying only luminescent chromophores present in the systems of interest, in contrast to CD, which is affected by most chromophores and/or equilibrium mixtures in an additive manner. The
NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript
NIH-PA Author ManuscriptThe CPL spectra of 2 mM solutions of M I [Eu((+)-hfbc) 4 ] (M I = Cs and Na) in CHCl 3 are plotted in Figure 1 in the spectral range of the 5 D 0 → 7 F 1 transition, which is particularly wellsuited for CPL measurements since it satisfies the magnetic-dipole selection rule, ΔJ = 0, ±1 (except 0↔0), respectively. As shown in Figure 1, the detection of a CPL signal confirmed the presence of stable chiral emitting species on the luminescence time scale. The g lum values of the M I [Eu((+)-hfbc) 4 ] (M I = Cs and Na) complexes amounted to +1.38 and +0.15 at 595 nm, respecti...