New Insights To Simulate the Luminescence Properties of Pt(II) Complexes Using Quantum Calculations

The present manuscript reports a thorough quantum investigation on the luminescence properties of three monoplatinum(II) complexes. First, the simulated bond lengths at the ground state are compared to the observed ones, and the simulated electronic transitions are compared to the reported ones in the literature in order to assess our methodology. In a second time we show that geometries from the first triplet excited state are similar to the ground state ones. Simulations of the phosphorescence spectra from the first triplet excited states have been performed taking into account the vibronic coupling effects together with mode-mixing (Dushinsky) and solvent effects. Our simulations are compared with the observed ones already reported in the literature and are in good agreement. The calculations demonstrate that the normal modes of low energy are of great importance on the phosphorescence signature. When temperature effects are taken into account, the simulated phosphorescence spectra are drastically improved. An analysis of the computational time shows that the vibronic coupling simulation is cost-effective and thus can be extended to treat large transition metal complexes. In addition to the intrinsic importance of the investigated targets, this work provides a robust method to simulate phosphorescence spectra and to increase the duality experiment-theory.