Optical behaviors of conjugated-chain compounds containing benzene and furan units

Thirteen conjugated-chain compounds which contain benzene and furan units were prepared, their optical behaviors, including UV-vis absorption coefficient (ɛ), absorption wavelengths (λa), fluorescence emission wavelengths (λe), and quantum yields (Φ) were measured. Meanwhile, their LUMO and HOMO energy were determined by cyclic voltammetry and their second-order polarizations (βxxx) values were determined by solvatochromic method, respectively. The results showed that this kind of compounds possess a shorter λa (320-365 nm) and performance a higher Φ values, especially for 2aa, 2ab, 2ac and 2bb, their Φ values are all more than 90%. These compounds, except 2db, showed a higher βxxx values in DMSO, especially for 2dc (75.77 × 10−30 m5 C−1) and 2dd (83.32 × 10−30 m5 C−1), than that 10-methyl-acridone (6.578 × 10−30 m5 C−1) or 10-benzylacridone (6.845 × 10−30 m5 C−1) in DMSO did, and second harmonic generation value of 10-methylacridone and 10-benzylacridone in powder are, respectively, 1.381 and 1.861 times of that value of urea. The βxxx values and Φ values determined for these compounds in this work were lower than these values which were desired in the original work, this phenomena was explained from their molecular structures. This work confirmed that as these compounds performance shorter λa and higher Φ values, they could be good blue-color optical materials for some fields, such as OLED materials, two-photo absorption materials, fluorescent dyes.