Conjugated Au(I) Heterocycles Through iClick

Nicholas J. Campbell, Sohel Ahmed, Kirk S. Schanze, Adam S. Veige

University of Florida, University of Texas at San Antonio

In 2011 the first inorganic click reaction (iClick) that involved a metal acetylide and a metal azide was performed which yielded a 1,5-digold triazole ring. In 2015, iClick was utilized to synthesize the first solution-stable tetragold complex exhibiting aurophilicity, the property of gold where it can cluster with other gold atoms nearby. By 2019, two gold complexes had been synthesized that emitted white light based on the CIE standard, whereas typically multiple varied chromophores are required to mix to achieve white light. In 2020 iClick was utilized to synthesize a tetragold organometallic chromophore that when doped into an OLED, emitted white light. In this, iClick was used to synthesize a variety of heavily conjugated organometallic chromophores and photophysical analysis has been performed to determine the system’s ability to fluoresce and phosphoresce as conjugation increases and decreases.