Effect of Chelate Ring Expansion on Jahn-Teller Distortion and Jahn Teller Dynamics in Copper(II) Complexes

The expanded ligand N,N'-dimethyl-N,N'-dipyridin-2-yl-pyridin-2,6-diamine (ddpd) coordinates to copper(II) ions in a meridional fashion giving the dicationic complex mer[Cu(ddpd)(2)](BF4)(2) (1). In the solid state at temperatures below 100 K the cations of I localize in Jahn-Teller elongated CuN6 polyhedra with the longest Cu-N bond pointing in the molecular x or y directions while the z axis is constrained by the tridentate ddpd ligand. The elongated polyhedra are ordered in an antiferrodistortive way giving an idealized zincblende structure. At higher temperature dynamically averaged (fluxional) polyhedra in the molecular x/y directions are observed by multifrequency variable temperature electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and by variable temperature X-ray diffraction studies. Compared to [Cu(tpy)(2)](2+) (tpy = 2,2'6,2 ''-terpyridine) the Jahn-Teller splitting 4 delta(1) of 1 is larger. This is very probably caused by the much more favorable orbital overlap in the Cu-N bonds in 1 which results from the larger bite angle of ddpd as compared to tpy. The "freezing-in" of the Jahn-Teller dynamics of 1 (T approximate to 100 K) occurs at higher temperature than observed for [Cu(tpy)(2)](2+) (T < 77 K) which is also probably due to the larger Jahn-Teller distortion of 1 resulting in a larger activation barrier.