Asymmetric Donor-acceptor Research Articles

White‐Light Emission Strategy of a Single Organic Compound with Aggregation‐Induced Emission and Delayed Fluorescence Properties

AbstractA novel white‐light‐emitting organic molecule, which consists of carbazolyl‐ and phenothiazinyl‐substituted benzophenone (OPC) and exhibits aggregation‐induced emission‐delayed fluorescence (AIE‐DF) and mechanofluorochromic properties was synthesized. The CIE color coordinates of OPC were directly measured with a non‐doped powder, which presented white‐emission coordinates (0.33, 0.33) at 244 K to 252 K and (0.35, 0.35) at 298 K. The asymmetric donor–acceptor–donor′ (D‐A‐D′) type of OPC exhibits an accurate inherited relationship from dicarbazolyl‐substituted benzophenone (O2C, D‐A‐D) and diphenothiazinyl‐substituted benzophenone (O2P, D′‐A‐D′). By purposefully selecting the two parent molecules, that is, O2C (blue) and O2P (yellow), the white‐light emission of OPC can be achieved in a single molecule. This finding provides a feasible molecular strategy to design new AIE‐DF white‐light‐emitting organic molecules.

Exceptional Blueshifted and Enhanced Aggregation‐Induced Emission of Conjugated Asymmetric Triazines and Their Applications in Superamplified Detection of Explosives

A novel conjugated asymmetric donor-acceptor (CADA) strategy for preventing the redshift in photoluminescence, as well as preserving the merits of donor-acceptor architectures, was proposed and demonstrated for two triazine derivatives, which showed highly efficient, narrow, and blueshifted ultraviolet light emission in solid films along with special aggregation-induced emission behavior. A mechanism of aggregation-induced locally excited-state emission by suppressing the twisted intramolecular charge-transfer emission for the spectacular optoelectronic phenomena of these CADA molecules was suggested on the basis of both experimental measurements and theoretical calculations. By taking advantage of this special CADA architecture, fluorescent probes based on aggregates of conjugated asymmetric triazines in THF/water for the detection of explosives show superamplified detection of picric acid with high quenching constants (>1.0 × 10(7) M(-1)) and a low detection limit of 15 ppb.

Asymmetrically substituted distyrylbenzenes and their polar crystal structures

The synthesis of twelve asymmetric donor–acceptor distyrylbenzene derivatives with either one nitrile group or one, two or three nitro groups as electron acceptors, and one, two or three methoxy groups as electron donors is reported. Peak potentials obtained from cyclic voltammetry were combined with experimental UV/Vis data and molecular dipole moments obtained from quantum chemical calculations, yielding insight into the influence of the positions of the substituents on the electronic structure and charge distribution of this as yet unexplored class of organic semiconductors. The supramolecular structures of five of these compounds have been studied using single-crystal X-ray diffraction to monitor the influence of the positions of donor and acceptor groups on the organisation of the molecules in the solid state, and three crystal structures have been identified in which the molecular dipoles do not organize themselves in a centrosymmetric lattice. Analysis of the dipoles in the unit cell yields further insight into the possible non-linear optical properties of these three polar structures.

Synthesis, characteristic and theoretical investigation of the structure, electronic properties and second-order nonlinearity of salicylaldehyde Schiff base and their derivatives

A series of asymmetric donor–acceptor substituted salen-type Schiff-bases have been synthesized and their structures, electronic properties and second order nonlinearities were investigated by DFT methods. In order to verify the stable of these Schiff-base derivates, the IR spectrum of these Schiff-base derivates were calculated, the result showed that these compounds are stable. The results of TD-DFT calculation indicate that the derivatives with the electron-donating group (CH 3, OCH 3 or N(C 2H 5) 2) have a red shift absorption compared to derivatives with the electron-withdrawing group (NO 2). The analysis of MOS indicates that the CN group has contribution to the LUMO orbital while the groups of OCH 3, N(C 2H 5) 2 and NO 2 have contribution to the HOMO orbital. OCH 3, N(C 2H 5) 2 as electron rich groups, made the derivates have a larger first static hyperpolarizability. However, the compound (II) with a NO 2 substituent, also has a large first static hyperpolarizability. This is probably because of the special transition model, namely the values of two oscillator strength f ( f HOMO−1–LUMO = 0.405, f HOMO–LUMO = 0.321) are almost equal. In order to understand the influence of the energy gap (Δ E) between the HOMO and the LUMO orbitals on the first static hyperpolarizability, we calculated the energy gap (Δ E) of all Schiff-base compounds. The results show that the smaller the HOMO–LUMO energy gap is, the larger the first static hyperpolarizability is.

Two-Photon Absorption Cross Sections of Dithienothiophene-Based Molecules

We performed nonlinear transmission measurements and quantum-chemical calculations on dithienothiophene (DTT)-based molecules to gain insight into the effect of acceptor and donor groups on two-photon absorption (TPA) properties. The TPA intensity showed dispersion characteristics of the single-photon absorption spectrum. When the molecules included an asymmetric donor-acceptor pair, the single- and two-photon absorption maximum wavelengths were red-shifted more than when the molecules had a symmetric donor-donor structure. We interpreted this result as indicating that the S2 state plays the dominating role in the absorption process of molecules with a symmetric structure. The experimental TPA δ values at the absorption peak wavelength showed a dependence on the structural variations. We found the self-consistent force-field theory and Hartree-Fock Hamiltonian with single configuration interaction formalism to be valid for evaluating TPA δ. Although the quantum-chemical calculations slightly underestimated the experimental δ values obtained from nonlinear transmission measurements, they reasonably predicted the dependence of the δ value on the structural variations. We confirmed the role of molecular symmetry by observing that donor-donor substituted structure gave the highest experimental and theoretical TPA δ values and that the donor-acceptor substituted structure showed a greater red-shift in the TPA absorption maximum wavelength. Overall, the theoretical δ values of DTT-based molecules were in the order of 10−−46 cm4 · s · photon−1 and are higher than that of AF-50 by nearly two orders of magnitude.