Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol.130, No.13, 4396-4403, 2008
2,3,5,6-tetrafluorophenyinitren-4-yl: Electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopic characterization of a quartet-ground-state nitreno radical
2,3,5,6-Tetrafluorophenylnitren-4-yl (5) was synthesized in argon at 4 K via the photolysis of 2,3,5,6-tetrafluoro-4-iodo-phenyl azide (6). Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy allows us to observe thradical 5 in its quartet state with the zero-field splitting (ZFS) parameters [D/hc] = 0.285 and [E/hc] = 0.043 cm(-1). The quartet ground state of 5 is in accordance with our previous infrared (IR) spectroscopic investigation, in which the high-spin quartet state, but no low-spin doublet state, of 5 was observed in solid argon at 4 K [Wenk, H. H.; Sander, W. Angew. Chem., Int Ed. 2002, 41, 2742-2745). Because annealing of the matrix at temperatures of > 10 K results in the rapid recombination of the highly reactive species 5 with I atoms produced during the photolysis of 6, the Curie-Weiss behavior could not be investigated. However, the absence of low-spin states in the IR investigations, as well as the results of ab initio and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, strongly suggest that 5 has a robust quartet ground state that is best-described as an unprecedented sigma,sigma,pi-triradical. The ZFS of 5 has been successfully reproduced by DFT calculations, which furthermore provide qualitative insight into the origin of the observed EPR parameters.