Vibrational study, first hyperpolarizability and HOMO-LUMO analyses on the structure of 2-hydroxy-6-nitro toluene

Vibrational spectral measurements, namely, FT-infrared (4000-400 cm(-1)) and FT-Raman (3500-50 cm(-1)) spectra have been made for 2-hydroxy-6-nitrotoluene (HNT) and assigned to different normal modes of the molecule. Quantum chemical calculations of energies, geometrical structure, harmonic vibrational frequencies intensities and vibrational wavenumbers of HNT were carried out by ab initio HF and density functional theory (DFT/B3LYP) method with 6-311++G(d,p) basis set. The differences between the observed and scaled wave number values of most of the fundamentals are very small. The values of the total dipole moment (μ) and first hyperpolarizability (β) of the investigated molecule were computed by using ab initio HF and density functional theory (DFT/B3LYP) methods with 6-311++G(d,p) basis set quantum mechanical calculations. The calculated results also show that the HNT molecule might have microscopic nonlinear optical (NLO) behavior with non-zero values. A detailed interpretation of the infrared and Raman spectra of HNT is also reported based on total energy distribution (TED). The calculated HOMO and LUMO energies show that charge transfer occurs within the molecule. The results of the calculations were applied to simulated infrared and Raman spectra of the title compound which showed excellent agreement with the observed spectra.