Self-assembled nanostructures of specially designed Schiff-bases and their zinc complexes: Preparation, characterization and photoluminescence property

• Four Schiff-bases and their ZnII complexes has been synthesized with the variation of para substituent.
• Inter/intramolecular hydrogen bonding generates self-assembled nanostructures.
• They possess plate, sphere, fiber and granular shape with a size of ∼200 nm depending on the R group.
• Powder XRD and FE-SEM was used to characterize their structure.
• DFT calculations were included to rationalize the electronic spectra.

Four specially designed Schiff bases 2-formyl-4-R-6-(3N-4-hydroxybenzoicacid)-iminomethyl-phenolato (where R = methyl/tert-butyl/chloro for L1, L2, L3 respectively) and 2-(3N-4-hydroxybenzoicacid)-iminomethyl-phenolato (L4) having ability to form hydrogen bonding and their zinc complexes (1–4) have been synthesized and characterized. These complexes gave various types of nano-sized materials via self-assembly in solid state. FE-SEM was employed to investigate their morphology. Using a variety of analytical techniques such as elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), ESI-MS and 1H NMR spectroscopy, a consistent picture of structures of these complexes are obtained. All the Schiff-bases and their zinc complexes exhibit photoluminescence property. Density functional theory calculation has been performed to rationalize the origin of the spectral bands of the ligands as well as the complexes.

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