Second-order nonlinear optical properties of dithienophenazine and TTF derivatives: A butterfly effect of dimalononitrile substitutions

• First hyperpolarizabilities were calculated for phenazine and TTF merged derivatives.
• Substitutions of dimalononitrile groups at phenazine part robust the first hyperpolarizability.
• TD-DFT study has been performed to trace the origin of larger β amplitudes.

Using density functional theory (DFT) methods, the nonlinear optical (NLO) properties have been calculated with strong donor-π-conjugation-acceptor configurations. The static first hyperpolarizability (β0) and dynamic (frequency dependent) electric field induced second harmonic generation (EFISHG) first hyperpolarizability (μβ) are calculated for all designed systems. Our DFT calculations show dithienophenazine merged TTF (2) holds larger β0 amplitudes (β0 = 21.04 × 103 a.u.) as compared to its corresponding compounds of TTF merged-difurophenazine (1), dicyclopentaphenazine (3) and dipyrrolophenazine (4) derivatives having β0 amplitudes of 16.25 × 103, 12.69 × 103, and 18.38 × 103 a.u., respectively. Furthermore, substitution of dimalononitrile [C(CN)2]2 groups at acceptor end of these compounds results in new derivatives 1a–4a, respectively. Interestingly, a butterfly effect on first hyperpolarizability of all systems 1a–4a has been spotted, which not only results in their robustly larger β0 amplitudes but also changes the increasing order of β0 amplitudes from systems 3 < 1 < 4 < 2 to 1a < 2a < 3a < 4a at both PBE0/6-31G* and CAM-B3LYP/6-31+G* levels of theory. For example, the increase in β0 amplitudes of systems 1a, 2a, 3a and 4a are 3, 3, 5, and 19 times as compared with their corresponding non dimalononitrile derivatives at PBE0/6-31G* level of theory, respectively. Remarkably, unlike the static first hyperpolarizability, the dynamic EFISHG hyperpolarizability (μβω) has the largest value for system 4a with its amplitudes of 1378.59 × 10−46 and 1349.40 × 10−46 esu, at PBE0/6-31G* and CAM-B3LYP/6-31+G* levels of theory, respectively. TD-DFT calculations have been performed to trace the origin of first hyperpolarizability. It has been found that the lower transition energy and higher oscillator strengths cause robustly large amplitudes especially in systems 3a and 4a, which consequently stems in strong donor-π-conjugation-acceptor configuration of these systems. Thus the present results intrigue the butterfly effect of a two-step substitution on NLO properties of TTF merged dithienophenazine compounds that can be used as an efficient NLO material.

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