Helicene and its derivatives have received much attention as the candidates of organic photoelectronic material. Recently, novel quinoxaline-fused [7]carbohelicene derivatives exhibit unique structural and photophysical properties, especially in the crystal states. However, their structure-property relationships have not been fully understood from the micromechanism, which is also important to further improve their performance. Here, the electronic transition, electronic circular dichroism (CD), second-order nonlinear optical (NLO) response and charge transport properties of five quinoxaline-fused [7]carbohelicene derivatives have been investigated based on density functional theory calculations. The experimental UV-Vis/CD spectra of the studied compounds were well reproduced by our calculations. Thus, we can assign their electron transition properties and absolution configurations (ACs) with high confidence. It is found that CD bands of quinoxaline-fused [7]carbohelicene derivatives mainly originate from exciton coupling between quinoxaline, phenyl or 4-methoxyphenyl and [7]carbohelicene, which is in sharp contrast to [7]carbohelicene. More interestingly, these derivatives possess large first hyperpolarizability values. For example, the βHRS value of compound 6 is 32.96 × 10 −30 esu, which is about 190 times larger than that of the organic urea molecule. The bandwidth of valence band of compound 2 is comparable to that of conduction band and slightly larger than that of tris(8-hydroxyquinolinato)aluminium. This means that compound 2 is the potential candidate as ambipolar charge transport material.
Please do not adjust marginsPlease do not adjust margins modulates the LUMO energy level. As a consequence, LUMO energy of compound 2 is much lower than that of compound 1 (Table S6), which leads to the smaller energy gap (Eg) for compound 2. Moreover, the main electron transitions characters are of charge transfer from quinoxaline to [7]carbohelicene and vice versa (Fig. 3). On the basis of above analysis, it is found that involvement of quinoxaline unit not only modulates the electron absorption wavelength but also alter the electron transition property. Compounds 3 and 4 also exhibit four absorption bands, which is similar to those of compound 2. In other words, the substituent effect of phenyl or 4-methoxyphenyl group on the UV-Vis spectra of compound 2 is not great. It is noted that some of the molecular orbitals involved in these transitions partially located on the phenyl or 4-methoxyphenyl group.
Fig. 2Calculated UV-Vis (left) and CD (right) spectra in gas phase of 1, 2, 3 and 4 at the TDB3LYP/6-31+G(d) level of theory along with the experimental spectra (red dashed line).