Metal-ligand covalency of iron complexes from high-resolution resonant inelastic X-ray scattering.

ABSTRACT: Data from K? resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) have been used to extract electronic structure information, i.e., the covalency of metal-ligand bonds, for four iron complexes using an experimentally based theoretical model. K? RIXS involves resonant 1s?3d excitation and detection of the 2p?1s (K?) emission. This two-photon process reaches similar final states as single-photon L-edge (2p?3d) X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), but involves only hard X-rays and can therefore be used to get high-resolution L-edge-like spectra for metal proteins, solution catalysts and their intermediates. To analyze the information content of K? RIXS spectra, data have been collected for four characteristic ?-donor and ?-back-donation complexes: ferrous tacn [Fe(II)(tacn)2]Br2, ferrocyanide [Fe(II)(CN)6]K4, ferric tacn [Fe(III)(tacn)2]Br3 and ferricyanide [Fe(III)(CN)6]K3. From these spectra metal-ligand covalencies can be extracted using a charge-transfer multiplet model, without previous information from the L-edge XAS experiment. A direct comparison of L-edge XAS and K? RIXS spectra show that the latter reaches additional final states, e.g., when exciting into the e(g) (?*) orbitals, and the splitting between final states of different symmetry provides an extra dimension that makes K? RIXS a more sensitive probe of ?-bonding. Another key difference between L-edge XAS and K? RIXS is the ?-back-bonding features in ferro- and ferricyanide that are significantly more intense in L-edge XAS compared to K? RIXS. This shows that two methods are complementary in assigning electronic structure. The K? RIXS approach can thus be used as a stand-alone method, in combination with L-edge XAS for strongly covalent systems that are difficult to probe by UV/vis spectroscopy, or as an extension to conventional absorption spectroscopy for a wide range of transition metal enzymes and catalysts.

SUBMITTER: Lundberg M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3920600 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature