peri-Acenoacene molecules: tuning of the singlet and triplet excitation energies by modifying their radical character

Electronic Properties of Graphene Nano-Parallelograms: A Thermally Assisted Occupation DFT Computational Study

In this computational study, we investigate the electronic properties of zigzag graphene nano-parallelograms (GNPs), which are parallelogram-shaped graphene nanoribbons of various widths and lengths, using thermally assisted occupation density functional theory (TAO-DFT). Our calculations revealed a monotonic decrease in the singlet-triplet energy gap as the GNP length increased. The GNPs possessed singlet ground states for all the cases examined. With the increase of GNP length, the vertical ionization potential and fundamental gap decreased monotonically, while the vertical electron affinity increased monotonically. Some of the GNPs studied were found to possess fundamental gaps in the range of 1-3 eV, lying in the ideal region relevant to solar energy applications. Besides, as the GNP length increased, the symmetrized von Neumann entropy increased monotonically, denoting an increase in the degree of the multi-reference character associated with the ground state GNPs. The occupation numbers and real-space representation of active orbitals indicated that there was a transition from the nonradical nature of the shorter GNPs to the increasing polyradical nature of the longer GNPs. In addition, the edge/corner localization of the active orbitals was found for the wider and longer GNPs.

Dibenzannulated peri-acenoacenes from anthanthrene derivatives

A series of dibenzannulated phenyl-annulated [4,2]peri-acenoacenes have been synthesized in three straightforward steps from 4,10-dibromoanthanthrone (vat orange 3). The phenyl bisannulation of [4,2]peri-acenoacene provides extra stability by increasing the overall aromatic character of the molecules, and allows for a 45-80% increase of the molar extinction coefficient (ε) compared to their [5,2]peri-acenoacene isomers. Depending on the substituents attached to the π-conjugated core, some derivatives exhibit strong aggregation in the solid state with association constant (Ka) up to 255 M-1, resulting in a significant broadening of the absorption spectrum and a substantial decrease of the bandgap value (more than 0.3 V) from solution to the solid state. One [4,2]peri-acenoacene derivative was doubly reduced using cesium and the crystal structure of the resulting salt has been obtained. Field-effect transistors showing a temperature-dependent hole mobility have been tested.

Constructing 1-Ethoxyphenanthro[9,10-e]acephenanthrylene for the Synthesis of a Polyaromatic Hydrocarbon Containing a Formal Azulene Unit

peri-Acenoacenes are attractive synthetic targets, but their non-benzenoid isomeric counterparts were unnoticed. 1-Ethoxyphenanthro[9,10-e]acephenanthrylene 8 was synthesized and converted to azulene-embedded 9, which is a tribenzo-fused non-alternant isomeric motif of peri-anthracenoanthracene. Aromaticity and single-crystal analyses suggested a formal azulene core for 9, which showed a smaller highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO)-lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy gap with a charge-transfer absorption band and brighter fluorescence than 8 (quantum yield (Φ): 9 = 41.8%, 8 = 8.9%). The reduction potentials of 8 and 9 were nearly identical, and the observations were further supported by density functional theory (DFT) calculations.