Quenching effect of C-H bond in long lived NIR luminescent erbium complexes

Erbium excited state deactivation is studied for two fluorinated complexes based on N-(P,P-ditetrafluorophosphinoyl-P,P-ditetrafluorophenyl phosphinimidates and N-(P,P-dipentafluoro phosphinoyl)-P,P-dipentafluorophenyl phosphinimidates ligands. We show that the substitution of a fluorine atom in para-position by an hydrogen atom on each phenyl ring of the perfluorinated organic ligand results in a decrease in near infrared luminescence lifetimes from 800 µs to 70 µs when measured under vacuum on sublimated powder samples. These experiments show that the introduction of C-H bonds, although outside the first coordination sphere of the erbium ion, can still induce a one order of magnitude decrease in its excited state lifetime. The found lifetime however is still longer than most reported partially fluorinated complexes, which opens the way for new functionalized complexes.