Multiscale experimental and theoretical investigations of spin crossover feii complexes: Examples of [Fe(phen)2(NCS)2] and [Fe(PM-BiA)2(NCS)2]

Abstract

For spin crossover (SCO) complexes, computation results are reported and confirmed with experiments at multiscale levels of the isolated molecule and extended solid on the one hand and theory on the other hand. The SCO phenomenon which characterizes organometallics based on divalent iron in an octahedral FeN6-like environment with high spin (HS) and low spin (LS) states involves the LS/HS switching at the cost of small energies provided by temperature, pressure or light, the latter connected with Light-Induced Excited Spin-State Trapping (LIESST) process. Characteristic infra red (IR) and Raman vibration frequencies are computed within density functional theory (DFT) framework. In [Fe(phen)2(NCS)2] a connection of selected frequencies is established with an ultra-fast light-induced LS → HS photoswitching mechanism. In the extended solid, density of state DOS and electron localization function (ELF) are established for both LS and HS forms, leading to characterizion of the compound as an insulator in both spin states with larger gaps for LS configuration, while keeping molecular features in the solid. In [Fe(PM-BiA)2(NCS)2], by combining DFT and classical molecular dynamics, the properties and the domains of existence of the different phases are obtained by expressing the potential energy surfaces in a short range potential for Fe–N interactions. Applying such Fe–N potentials inserted in a classical force field and carrying out molecular dynamics (MD) in so-called “semi-classical MD” calculations, lead to the relative energies of HS/LS configurations of the crystal and to the assessment of the experimental (P, T) phase diagram.