We present the first examples of alkylated derivatives of the macropolyhedral boron hydride, anti-B18H22, which is the gain medium in the first borane laser. This new series of ten highly stable and colorless organic−inorganic hybrid clusters are capable of the conversion of UVA irradiation to blue light with fluorescence quantum yields of unity. This study gives a comprehensive description of their synthesis, isolation, and structural characterization together with a delineation of their photophysical properties using a combined theoretical and experimental approach.
All these new compounds add to the growing portfolio of octadecaborane-based luminescent species, and in an effort to broaden the perspective on their highly emissive photophysical properties, we highlight emerging patterns that successive substitutions have on the molecular size of the 18-vertex borane cluster structure and the distribution of the electron density within
Jonathan Bould,* Kamil Lang, Kaplan Kirakci, Luis Cerdán, Antonio Francés-Monneris, Daniel Roca-Sanjuán, William Clegg, Paul Waddell, Marcel Fuciman, Tomáš Polívka and Michael G. S. Londesborough*
J. Inorg. Chem. 2020, 59, 17058-17070;
DOI: 10.1039/d0tc02309d.