Lattice vibrations of the molecular crystal of photoreactive substance with defects

Abstract

Lattice vibrations are studied theoretically by density-functional based tight-binding methods for the model structure of 2-(2'-hydroxyphenyl)benzoxazole crystal with defects. 2-(2'-hydroxyphenyl)benzoxazole is a photoreactive compound that exhibits excited state intramolecular proton transfer in the structure with an OH...N hydrogen bond. The unit cell of the model structure consists of two crystal unit cells where the molecules have the structure with intramolecular hydrogen bonds OH...N and one molecule is supposed to have a different orientation of the whole molecule or its fragment. The different orientation of the fragment forms the structure with an intramolecular hydrogen bond OH...O. It is calculated that defect caused by the different orientation of the molecule have a lower energy than the defect caused by the different orientation of the fragment. In the frequency region where the contribution of external vibrations of the molecules is significant, the vibrations mainly involve several molecules in the cell. In the region of internal vibrations there are modes, which are local vibrations of the defects. These local vibrations involve mainly motion of the atoms constituting the defect molecule. The number of local vibrations is larger for the defect that corresponds to the formation of the structure with the OH...O hydrogen bond than for the defect that corresponds to the different orientation of the whole molecule with the OH...N hydrogen bond. The internal vibrations of the defect molecule formed by the different orientation of phenol fragment in the lattice undergoes frequency shift in relation to the frequency of the modes of isolated molecule.