Direct Observation of Photoinduced Bent Nitrosyl Excited-State Complexes

Ground state structures with side-on nitrosyl ({eta}{sup 2}-NO) and isonitrosyl (ON) ligands have been observed in a variety of transition-metal complexes. In contrast, excited state structures with bent-NO ligands have been proposed for years but never directly observed. Here we use picosecond time-resolved infrared spectroscopy and density functional theory (DFT) modeling to study the photochemistry of Co(CO){sub 3}(NO), a model transition-metal-NO compound. Surprisingly, we have observed no evidence for ON and {eta}{sup 2}-NO structural isomers, but have observed two bent-NO complexes. DFT modeling of the ground and excited state potentials indicates that the bent-NO complexes correspond to triplet excited states. Photolysis of Co(CO){sub 3}(NO) with a 400-nm pump pulse leads to population of a manifold of excited states which decay to form an excited state triplet bent-NO complex within 1 ps. This structure relaxes to the ground triplet state in ca. 350 ps to form a second bent-NO structure.