Assembly of Heterometallic Silver(I)-Copper(I) Alkyl-1,3-diynyl Clusters via Inner-Core Expansion

J Am Chem Soc. 2016 Oct 19;138(41):13732-13739. doi: 10.1021/jacs.6b08674. Epub 2016 Oct 11.

Abstract

New tetranuclear supramolecular precursors [(R-C≡C-C≡C)Ag]4 (R = iPr, tBu, and chx) are employed to construct a series of heterometallic silver(I)-copper(I) alkyl-1,3-diynyl cluster complexes (1-9) that bear a common CuAg3 core (normally trigonal-planar, but can be distorted to pyramidal) consolidated by cupro-argentophilic interaction under 3.12 Å, as found in 1 and 2. The photophysical properties of the multinuclear supramolecular precursors and selected complexes have been investigated. The present results strongly suggest that the assembly of medium-nuclearity clusters 3 to 9 is initiated by accretion of additional Ag(I) ions by the ubiquitous CuAg3 template through argentophilic (<3.4 Å) interaction, with cooperative cuprophilic enhancement (<2.76 Å) in the case of compound 9. To our knowledge, the present study provides the first report of conversion of a Group 11 homonuclear cluster into a heteronuclear one of higher nuclearity via inner-core expansion.