EN
A new ligand napaa (napaa = 7-acetamido-4-methyl-1,8-naphthyridin-2-carbaldehyde azine) and its two dinuclear copper(I) complexes, Cu2(napaa)(dppe)2(ClO4)2 (1) and Cu2(napaa)(PPh3)4(BF4)2 (2) (dppe = 1,2-bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane) and PPh3 = triphenylphosphine) were synthesized and characterized, and the structure of 1 was determined by X-ray crystal analysis. Each copper atom in 1 has a distorted tetrahedral geometry in which the metal center is associated to napaa and dppe ligands displaying chelating coordination modes and the naphthyridine rings of napaa are almost coplanar. The two complexes exhibit similar electronic absorption spectra with λmax at about 366 nm, which can be tentatively assigned to metal-to-ligand charge-transfer (MLCT) transition. The assignment was further supported by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. [...]