This work reports on synthesis and extensive experimental and theoretical investigations on photophysical, structural and thermal properties of the NiII and CuII discrete mononuclear homoleptic complexes [Ni(LI,II)2] and [Cu(LI,II)2] fabricated from the Schiff base dyes o-HOC6H4—CH=N—cyclo-C6H11 (HLI) and o-HOC10H6—CH=N—cyclo-C6H11 (HLII), containing the sterically crowding cyclohexyl units. The six-membered metallocycles adopt a clearly defined envelope conformation in [Ni(LII)2], while they are much more planar in the structures of [Ni(LI)2] and [Cu(LI,II)2]. It has been demonstrated by in-depth bonding analyses based on the ETS-NOCV and Interacting Quantum Atoms energy-decomposition schemes that application of the bulky substituents, containing several C—H groups, has led to the formation of a set of classical and unintuitive intra- and inter-molecular interactions. All together they are responsible for the high stability of [Ni(LI,II)2] and [Cu(LI,II)2]. More specifically, London dispersion dominated intramolecular C—H⋯O, C—H⋯N and C—H⋯H—C hydrogen bonds are recognized and, importantly, the attractive, chiefly the Coulomb driven, preagostic (not repulsive anagostic) C—H⋯Ni/Cu interactions have been discovered despite their relatively long distances (∼2.8–3.1 Å). All the complexes are further stabilized by the extremely efficient intermolecular C—H⋯π(benzene) and C—H⋯π(chelate) interactions, where both the charge-delocalization and London dispersion constituents appear to be crucial for the crystal packing of the obtained complexes. All the complexes were found to be photoluminescent in CH2Cl2, with [Cu(LII)2] exhibiting the most pronounced emission – the time-dependent density-functional-theory computations revealed that it is mostly caused by metal-to-ligand charge-transfer transitions.
