X-ray study of the light-induced metastable state of a spin-crossover compound

Iron(II) complexes exhibiting thermal spin crossover may be converted from the ¹A₁ low-spin (LS) state to the ⁵T₂ high-spin (HS) state by irradiation with green light (light-induced excited spin-state trapping, LIESST). The lifetime of the metastable LIESST state may be sufficiently long for X-ray diffraction study. The lattice parameters of a single crystal of [Fe(ptz)₆](BF₄)₂ (ptz = propyltetrazole) were measured between 300 and 10 K, while the crystal changed from the HS to the LS state near 135 K. Using the green light (514 nm) of an argon-ion laser, the crystal was quantitatively converted to the metastable LIESST state at 10 K; its lattice parameters were measured up to 50 K, at which point the LIESST state begins to decay on a minute timescale. The change of the lattice parameters can be interpreted by a superposition of a normal temperature dependence, for which the isostructural zinc compound served as a reference, and an almost temperature-independent part which is proportional to the fraction of molecules in the HS state.