A phosphorescent copper(I) complex: Synthesis, characterization, photophysical property, and oxygen-sensing behavior

In this paper, we report the synthesis, crystal structure, photophysical properties, and electronic nature of a phosphorescent CO) complex of [Cu(Phen-Np)(POP)]BF4, where Phen-Np and POP stand for 2-(naphthalen-1-yl)-1H-imidazo[4,5-f][1,10]phenanthroline and bis(2-(diphenylphosphanyl)phenyl) ether, respectively. [Cu(Phen-Np)(POP))BF4 renders a yellow phosphorescence peaking at 545 nm, with a long excited state lifetime of 4.69 mu s. Density functional calculation reveals that the emission comes from a triplet metal-to-ligand-charge-transfer excited state. We electrospun composite nanofibers of [Cu(Phen-Np)(POP)]BF4 and polystyrene (PS), hoping to explore the possibility of using the composite nanofibers as an oxygen sensing material. The finally obtained samples with average diameter of similar to 300 nm exhibit a maximum sensitivity of 7.2 towards molecular oxygen with short response time of 7 s due to the large surface-area-to-volume ratio of nanofibrous membranes. No photobleaching is detected in these samples. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.