Transient resonance Raman and density functional theory investigation of the 4-acetamidophenylnitrenium ion

Direct Observation of 4-Phenoxyphenylnitrenium Ion: A Transient Absorption and Transient Resonance Raman Study

Femtosecond (fs) and nanosecond (ns) transient absorption (TA) and single pulse transient resonance Raman spectroscopic investigation of the intermediates after laser photolysis of 4-phenoxyphenyl azide in acetonitrile and mixed aqueous solution is reported. fs-TA results show that the singlet 4-phenoxyphenylnitrene was produced immediately after photolysis of the azide. Then, the singlet nitrene underwent intersystem crossing (ISC) and ring expansion to generate triplet nitrene and ketenimine in acetonitrile with t = 346 ps or protonation in mixed aqueous solution with t = 37 ps, respectively, a little slower than the counterparts of the methoxy one (108 and 5.4 ps for ISC and protonation processes, respectively). The transient Raman spectrum combined density functional theory (DFT) calculation predicting the structure and vibrational frequencies suggested that phenoxyphenylnitrenium ion has a comparable quinoidal character to that of methoxy- and ethoxy-phenylnitrenium ions. All of these results indicated that the phenoxy substitution has some impact on the reactivity of phenylnitrene but a slight influence on the structure of phenylnitrenium ion.

Molecular structure, spectroscopic studies and first-order molecular hyperpolarizabilities of p-amino acetanilide

The infrared absorption, Raman spectra and SERS spectra of p-amino acetanilide have been analyzed with the aid of density functional theory calculations at B3LYP/6-311G(d,p) level. The electric dipole moment (mu) and the first hyperpolarizability (beta) values of the investigated molecule have been computed using ab initio quantum mechanical calculations. The calculation results also show that the synthesized molecule might have microscopic nonlinear optical (NLO) behavior with non-zero values. Computed geometries reveal that the PAA molecule is planar, while secondary amide group is twisted with respect to the phenyl ring is found, upon hydrogen bonding. The hyperconjugation of the C=O group with adjacent C-C bond and donor-acceptor interaction associated with the secondary amide have been investigated using computed geometry. The carbonyl stretching band position is found to be influenced by the tendency of phenyl ring to withdraw nitrogen lone pair, intermolecular hydrogen bonding, conjugation and hyperconjugation. The existence of intramolecular C=O...H hydrogen bonded have been investigated by means of the natural bonding orbital (NBO) analysis. The influence of the decrease of N-H and C=O bond orders and increase of C-N bond orders due to donor-acceptor interaction has been identified in the vibrational spectra. The SERS spectral analysis reveals that the large enhancement of in-plane bending, out of plane bending and ring breathing modes in the surface-enhanced Raman scattering spectrum indicates that the molecule is adsorbed on the silver surface in a 'atleast vertical' configuration, with the ring perpendicular to the silver surface.