Crystal structure, spectroscopic properties and DFT studies on copper (II) complex of bis{(E)-1-[(2-phenoxyphenylimino)methyl]naphthalene-2-ol}chloroform solvate

•The compound was characterized by IR and X-ray crystallography.•Molecular geometry was determined by DFT method.•The calculated results were compared with experimental results.•NLO and NBO analysis of the compound were studied.

Copper (II) complex of the title Schiff base compound was synthesized from the reaction of 2-hydroxy-1-naphthaldehyde with 2-phenoxyaniline. The complex has been characterized by FT-IR, and X-ray single-crystal techniques. The molecular geometry, vibrational frequencies values of the compound in the ground state have been calculated using the density functional theory (DFT/B3LYP) method with the LANL2DZ basis set and compared with the experimental data. The calculated results show that the optimized geometry is compatible with the crystal structure and the theoretical vibrational frequencies are in good agreement with the experimental values. The energetic behavior of the compound in solvent media has been examined using B3LYP method with the LANL2DZ basis set by applying the polarizable continuum model (PCM). In addition, frontier molecular orbital analysis (HOMO–LUMO), natural bond orbital analysis (NBO) and non-linear optical (NLO) properties of the compound were investigated using same theoretical calculations.