Issue 23, 2021

Capturing photochemical and photophysical transformations in iron complexes with ultrafast X-ray spectroscopy and scattering

Abstract

Light-driven chemical transformations provide a compelling approach to understanding chemical reactivity with the potential to use this understanding to advance solar energy and catalysis applications. Capturing the non-equilibrium trajectories of electronic excited states with precision, particularly for transition metal complexes, would provide a foundation for advancing both of these objectives. Of particular importance for 3d metal compounds is characterizing the population dynamics of charge-transfer (CT) and metal-centered (MC) electronic excited states and understanding how the inner coordination sphere structural dynamics mediate the interaction between these states. Recent advances in ultrafast X-ray laser science has enabled the electronic excited state dynamics in 3d metal complexes to be followed with unprecedented detail. This review will focus on simultaneous X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) and X-ray solution scattering (XSS) studies of iron coordination and organometallic complexes. These simultaneous XES-XSS studies have provided detailed insight into the mechanism of light-induced spin crossover in iron coordination compounds, the interaction of CT and MC excited states in iron carbene photosensitizers, and the mechanism of Fe–S bond dissociation in cytochrome c.

Graphical abstract: Capturing photochemical and photophysical transformations in iron complexes with ultrafast X-ray spectroscopy and scattering

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
02 Apr 2021
Accepted
25 May 2021
First published
01 Jun 2021
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2021,12, 8010-8025

Capturing photochemical and photophysical transformations in iron complexes with ultrafast X-ray spectroscopy and scattering

K. J. Gaffney, Chem. Sci., 2021, 12, 8010 DOI: 10.1039/D1SC01864G

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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