Synthesis and Properties of Perylene-Bridge-Anchor Chromophoric Compounds

The quest to control chromophore/semiconductor properties to enable new technologies in energy and information science requires detailed understanding of charge carrier dynamics at the atomistic level, which can often be attained through the use of model systems. Perylene-bridge-anchor compounds are successful models for studying fundamental charge transfer processes on TiO₂, which remains among the most commonly investigated and technologically important interfaces, mostly because of perylene's advantageous electronic and optical properties. Nonetheless, the ability to fully exploit synthetically the substitution pattern of perylene with linker (= bridge-anchor) units remains little explored. Here we developed 2,5-di-tert-butylperylene (DtBuPe)-bridge-anchor compounds with t-Bu group substituents to prevent π-stacking and one or two linker units in both the peri and ortho positions, by employing a combination of Friedel-Crafts alkylations, bromination, iridium-catalyzed borylation, and palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. Photophysical characterization and computational analysis by density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) were carried out on four DtBuPe acrylic acid derivatives with a single or a double linker in peri (12b), ortho (15b), peri,peri (18b), and ortho,ortho (21b). The energies of the unoccupied orbitals {LUMO, LUMO + 1, LUMO + 2} are strongly affected by the presence of a π-conjugated linker, resulting in a stabilization of these states and a red shift of their absorption and emission spectra, as well as the loss of vibronic structure in the spectrum of the peri,peri compound, consistent with the strong bonding character of this substitution pattern.