“…In this paper, we report the synthesis, spectroscopic characterization and crystallographic structural study of the Schiff base N,N 0 -bis-(trans-2-nitrocinnamaldehyde)ethylenediamine (Nca 2 en), (1), and its Cu I complex, (2), containing also triphenylphosphane and isothiocyanate as ligands (see Scheme 1), and compare this complex with others containing the same ligand and its analogue without nitro groups. Although the structures of 11 complexes of (1) as a ligand with cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc and silver have been reported (Kirchner et al, 1987;Dehghanpour, Mahmoudi, Sepaveh & Ng, 2006;Dehghanpour & Mahmoudi, 2007;Habibi, Montazerozohori et al, 2007;Dehghanpour, Mahmoudi & Haghighatseresht, 2006;Dehghanpour, Kempe et al, 2006;Habibi, Lalegani et al, 2007a,b,c;Dehghanpour et al, 2008), the crystal structure of (1) itself has been obtained now for the first time (with the aid of synchrotron radiation because of the very small crystal size and twinning). The analogous Schiff base without nitro groups, N,N 0 -bis(trans-cinnamaldehyde)ethylenediamine, (3), has previously been crystallographically characterized (Khalaji & Weil, 2007), as have 18 of its complexes with cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc and silver (Meghdadi et al, 2002;Kickelbick et al, 2002Kickelbick et al, , 2003Khalaji, Aoki & Amirnasr, 2007;Amirnasr et al, 2003Amirnasr et al, , 2006Khalaji et al, 2006;Khalaji, Amirnasr & Schenk, 2007;Cai et al, 2008).…”