Organic metals from chiral BEDT-TTF donors

Abstract

We have shown that is is possible to obtain organic metals from chiral molecules. The X-ray results prove an oxidation number of + 1.5 for the radical cations in at least two cases. To our best knowledge. these are: the first examples of BEDT-TTF-related radical cation salts with this oxidation number. As expected, we obtained statistically disordered crystals, containing the two different enantiomers in a "racemic" mixture. The broad smeared-out phase transitions are probably due to this disorder, or may be caused by the three-dimensional interactions which have been observed, so far, only once in a BEDT-TTF radical salt. We will crystallize the metallic compounds using "optically pure" isomers, in the hope to be able to isolate chiral metals.