Esha Mishra1,Ping Wang2,Thilini Ekanayaka1,Kayleigh McElveen3,Jared Paul Phillips4,Mohammad Zaid Zaz1,Saeed Yazdani4,Alpha N'Diaye5,Duy Le6,Rebecca Lai3,Robert Streubel1,Ruihua Cheng4,Talat Rahman6,Michael Shatruk2,Peter Dowben1
University of Nebraska-Lincoln1,Florida State University2,University of Nebraska–Lincoln3,Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis4,Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory5,University of Central Florida6
Esha Mishra1,Ping Wang2,Thilini Ekanayaka1,Kayleigh McElveen3,Jared Paul Phillips4,Mohammad Zaid Zaz1,Saeed Yazdani4,Alpha N'Diaye5,Duy Le6,Rebecca Lai3,Robert Streubel1,Ruihua Cheng4,Talat Rahman6,Michael Shatruk2,Peter Dowben1
University of Nebraska-Lincoln1,Florida State University2,University of Nebraska–Lincoln3,Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis4,Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory5,University of Central Florida6
Two valence tautomeric spin crossover cobalt complexes [Co(SQ)(Cat)(4-CN-py)<sub>2</sub>] and [Co(SQ)(Cat)(3-tpp)<sub>2</sub>] have been investigated with a combination of X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and inverse photoemission Spectroscopy (IPES) with the aim of ascertaining the unoccupied molecular orbitals that contain both ligand and metal weight. The alignment of the spectroscopic core levels from XAS and IPES validates the existence of unoccupied metal ligand charge transfer state in these cobalt spin crossover systems. These studies demonstrated that the changes to the electronic structure of [Co(SQ)(Cat)(4-CN-py)<sub>2</sub>] and [Co(SQ)(Cat)(3-tpp)<sub>2</sub>], when an interface is created with either of polar organic molecule, poly-D-lysine or semi conducting polymer, polyaniline, is minimal. The metal-ligand unoccupied states have been identified and the states are largely insensitive to the polymer to spin crossover molecular interface, when the spin crossover complex is in the high spin state.