Bistability and Low-Energy Electron Transfer in Cobalt Complexes Containing Catecholate and Semiquinone Ligands

Studies have beeen carried out on intramolecular cobalt-quinone electron transfer for a series of complexes of general form Co III (N-N)(SQ)(Cat), where N-N is 2,2'-bipyridine (bpy), N,N,N',N'-tetramethylethylenediamine (tmeda), 1,10-phenanthroline (phen), bis(2-pyridyl) ketone (py) 2 CO), 5-nitro-1,10-phenanthroline (NO 2 phen), dipyrido[3,2-R:2',3'-c]phenazine (dppz), and 4,5-diazafluoren-9-one (dafl) and SQ and Cat are the 3,5- or 3,6-di-tert-butylcatechol and semiquinone ligands