Abstract
Magnetically induced current densities have been investigated for some recently synthesised thieno-bridged porphyrins. The aim of the study is to understand the influence of the direction of the thieno bridge on the aromatic character of the molecules. The calculated ring-current susceptibilities for two tautomers of 2,3- and 3,4-thieno-bridged porphyrins as well as of the corresponding Zn-containing compounds show that the molecules are all aromatic according to the ring current criterion. The ring-current susceptibilities of 16.2 nA/T and 20.2 nA/T around the porphyrin ring of the two tautomers of 2,3-thieno-bridged porphyrin are somewhat weaker than the ring-current susceptibilities of 22.8 nA/T and 23.8 nA/T obtained for the two tautomers of 3,4-thieno-bridged porphyrin. For 2,3-thieno-bridged porphyrin, the positions of the inner hydrogens affect the ring-current susceptibility more than for 3,4-thieno-bridged porphyrin. The current pathways of the Zn porphyrinoids are a superposition of the pathways of the two trans tautomers of the corresponding free-base porphyrinoids. The current-density calculations explain the different aromatic character of 2,3-thieno-bridged and 3,4-thieno-bridged porphyrins. Current-density calculations on tetra-2,3-thieno-bridged and tetra-3,4-thieno-bridged porphyrins yielded similar current pathways as obtained for mono-substituted thieno-bridged porphyrins. Tetra-2,3-thieno-bridged porphyrin is practically non-aromatic since it sustains a very weak ring current of 2.6 nA/T. The calculated ring-current susceptibilities for tetra-3,4-thieno-bridged porphyrin is 13.2 nA/T, which can be compared to the ring-current susceptibilities of 11.8 and 27.5 nA/T for benzene and free-base porphyrin, respectively.
Acknowledgements
This research has been supported by the Academy of Finland through its Computational Science Research Programme (LASTU). We thank Tohoku University and Magnus Ehrnrooth foundation for financial support. CSC – the Finnish IT Center for Science – is acknowledged for computer time. H. F. thanks for support by the Norwegian Research Council through the CoE Centre for Theoretical and Computational Chemistry (Grant No. 179568/V30). This work has received support from the Norwegian Supercomputing Program (NOTUR) through a grant of computer time (Grant No. NN4654K).