MOLECULAR STRUCTURE AND PHOTOPHYSICS OF N-QUATERNARY DIARYLOXAZOLIUM SALTS

ABSTRACT

The concern of this work is to study molecular structure, electronic absorption and emission spectra of several N-quaternary salts of the well-known diaryloxazole scintillating compounds: 2,5-diphenyloxazole, para-, meta- and ortho- isomers of bis-2-(5-phenyl-oxazolyl)-benzene (POPOP). All of them were obtained from the initial aryloxazoles by their methylation with dimethylsulfate.

We found, that N-methylation manifests itself in arising of sterical hindrance in the molecules of diaryloxazolium salts, which results in distortion of their planarity. On the contrary to the ground state, the investigated molecules become more planar in their lowest singlet excited state. As a result of such an excited state flattening, fluorescence Stokes shifts values of the diaryloxazolium salts exceed 9000–10,000 cm⁻¹. The excited state flattening rate constants, estimated for the studied oxazolium compounds, are of the 10¹⁰ s⁻¹ range. No considerable increase of radiationless losses, induced by the excited state structural relaxation, was found. Owing to these facts, N-quaternary diaryloxazolium salts may be considered as effective abnormally high Stokes shift organic luminophores.

Keywords:

• Diaryloxazole derivatives
• N-quaternary salts
• Sterical hindrance
• Abnormally high fluorescence Stokes shift
• Fluorescence quantum yields and lifetimes
• Quantum chemical calculations
• Excited state structural flattening

Acknowledgments