Better performances of benzene-based over thiophene-based aromatic anionic donors: Computational studies on metameric conformational selectivity and hyperpolarizability of organic inner salts

Earlier experimental works report the synthesis of zwitterions with anionic p-dicyanomethanide (coupled to benzene and thiophene) donors. In this report, four such zwitterions (two metameric pairs) are investigated using HF, B3LYP, CAM-B3LYP, HSE06, and ωB97xD methodologies. This work is focused on (1) metameric (Reichardt's and Brooker's) induced conformational selectivity (twisted vs. planar) and (2) efficiency assessments of benzene- versus thiophene-based anionic donors. These effects were found to have significant influences on many tensorial and nontensorial properties. For Reichardt's type, large twisting was observed for the benzene case and lower twisting for the thiophene case. Enhanced first hyperpolarizability were observed for Reichardt's type (257.2 × 10⁻³⁰ esu) than Brooker's type (67.2 × 10⁻³⁰ esu), thus indicating the former type to be more efficient (approximately fourfold enhancement) chromophore (approximately seven-time enhancement for thiophene-based systems). Similarly, between the benzene versus thiophene cases, enhanced hyperpolarizabilities were observed for the former (257.2 × 10⁻³⁰ esu) than the latter type (112.0 × 10⁻³⁰ esu), indicating the benzene type as more efficient (more than twofold enhancement) donor (approximately four-time enhancement for Brooker's types). The structure–property manipulations strategies investigated here can be used as valuable tools in the designing of efficient functional molecular materials for various fundamental applications.