Subtle hydrogen bond preference and dual Franck-Condon activity - the interesting pairing of 2-naphthol with anisole

The hydrogen-bonded complexes between 2-naphthol (or β-naphthol) and anisole are explored by detecting their IR absorption in the OH stretching range as well as their UV absorption by means of laser-induced fluorescence and resonance-enhanced two-photon UV ionisation. For the more stable cis and the metastable trans conformations of the OH group in 2-naphthol, hydrogen bonding to the oxygen atom of anisole is consistently detected in different supersonic jet expansions. Alternative hydrogen bonding to the aromatic ring of anisole remains elusive, although the majority of state-of-the-art hybrid DFT functionals with London dispersion correction and - less surprisingly - MP2 wavefunction theory predict it to be slightly more stable at zero-point level, unless three-body dispersion correction is added to the B3LYP-D3(BJ) approach. This changes at the CCSD(T) level, which forecasts an energy advantage of 1-3 kJ mol^-1 for the classical hydrogen bond arrangement even after including (DFT) zero-point energy contributions. The UV and IR spectra of the cis complex exhibit clear evidence for intensity redistribution of the primary OH stretch oscillator to combination states with the same low-frequency intermolecular bending mode by Franck-Condon-type vertical excitation mechanisms. This rare case of dual (vibronic and vibrational) Franck-Condon activity of a low-frequency mode invites future studies of homologues where aromatic ring docking of the OH group may be further stabilised, e.g. through anisole ring methylation.