Molecular structure of phthalocyaninatotin(II) studied by gas-phase electron diffraction and high-level quantum chemical calculations.

The molecular structure of phthalocyaninatotin(II), Sn(II)Pc, is determined by density functional theory (DFT/B3LYP) calculations using various basis sets and gas-phase electron diffraction (GED). The quantum chemical calculations show that Sn(II)Pc has C4V symmetry, and this symmetry is consistent with the structure obtained by GED at 427 degrees C. GED locates the Sn atom at h(Sn) ) 112.8(48) pm above the plane defined by the four isoindole N atoms, and a N-Sn bond length of 226.0(10) pm is obtained. Calculation at the B3LYP/ccpVTZ/cc-pVTZ-PP(Sn) level of theory gives h(Sn) ) 114.2 pm and a N-Sn bond length of 229.4 pm. The phthalocyanine (Pc) macrocycle has a slightly nonplanar structure. Generally, the GED results are in good agreement with the X-ray structures and with the computed structure; however, the comparability between these three methods has been questioned. The N-Sn bond lengths determined by GED and X-ray are significantly shorter than those from the B3LYP predictions. Similar trends have been found for C-Sn bonds for conjugated organometallic tin compounds. Computed vibrational frequencies give five low frequencies in the range of 18-54 cm-1, which indicates a flexible molecule.