Experimental and theoretical investigations on chalcones containing pyrene

Three chalcone derivatives featuring pyrene chromophore are designed, synthesised and studied for their thermal, photophysical and electrochemical properties. They exhibited a maximum absorption peak rang-ing from 414 nm to 421 nm and emission in cyan region. A chalcone containing nitro substituent dis-played intramolecular charge transfer than a similar compound containing methoxy group. Excited life-time analysis reveals the biexponential decay with two lifetime components. Solvatochromism of the chalcones revealed the effect of auxochrome in the intramolecular charge transfer. All the chalcones ex-hibited aggregation induced blue-shifted emission due to the restricted rotation and H-aggregation. The density functional theoretical calculation results further confirmed the charge transfer characteristic of the compounds.(c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

In this study, three chalcone derivatives featuring pyrene chromophore were designed, synthesised, and investigated for their thermal, photophysical, and electrochemical properties. The results showed that these compounds exhibited specific absorption and emission characteristics, with the chalcone containing a nitro substituent displaying stronger intramolecular charge transfer. The solvatochromism of the chalcones and the aggregation-induced blue-shifted emission were also studied.