Substituent effects on the optical properties of naphthalenediimides: A frontier orbital analysis across the periodic table

A comprehensive theoretical treatment is presented for the electronic excitation spectra of ca. 50 different mono-, di-, and tetrasubstituted naphthalenediimides (NDI) using timedependent density functional theory (TDDFT) at ZORA-CAM-B3LYP/TZ2P//ZORA-BP86/TZ2P with COSMO for simulating the effect of dichloromethane (DCM) solution. The substituents -XH_n are from groups 14–17 and rows 2–5 of the periodic table. The lowest dipole-allowed singlet excitation (S₀–S₁) of the monosubstituted NDIs can be tuned from 3.39 eV for -F to 2.42 eV for -TeH, while the S₀–S₂ transition is less sensitive to substitution with energies ranging between 3.67 eV for -CH3 and 3.44 eV for -SbH₂. In the case of NDIs with group- 15 and 216 substituents, the optical transitions strongly depend on the extent to which -XH_n is planar or pyramidal as well as on the possible formation of intramolecular hydrogen bonds. The accumulative effect of double and quadruple substitution leads in general to increasing bathochromic shifts, but the increased steric hindrance in tetrasubstituted NDIs can lead to deformations that diminish the effectiveness of the substituents. Detailed analyses of the Kohn–Sham orbital electronic structure in monosubstituted NDIs reveal the mesomeric destabilization of the HOMO as the primary cause of the bathochromic shift of the S₀–S₁ transition. VC 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.