Anthracene derived dinuclear gold(I) diacetylide complexes: Synthesis, photophysical properties and supramolecular interactions

New anthracene derived dinuclear Au(I)-diacetylide complex (1) has been synthesized in which two Au(I) units are attached at 9,10-positions of ethynyl anthracene moiety. 1 exhibits rare non-covalent intermolecular Au center dot center dot center dot H-C interactions, leading to the formation of a supramolecular 2D-network. Further, to understand the effect of C CAuPPh3 units at different position, complexes (2) and (3) were synthesized, where C CAuPPh3 units are attached to 2,6-and 1,8-positions of anthracene, respectively. The absorption and emission spectra of 1-3 have been studied and surprisingly 1 was found to be highly fluorescent with high quantum yield compared to 2 and 3, this may be due to more perturbation of Au(I) on pi system. Complexes 1-3 have been characterized by elemental analysis, NMR and Mass spectroscopy and authenticated by their single-crystal X-ray structures. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.