Synthesis, TD-DFT, and optical properties study of a chromeno-quinoline (acceptor) and mirror-less laser action enabled by energy transfer from a conjugated-polymer (Donor)

Structurally interesting chromeno-quinolines were constructed via the cyclization reaction of O-propargylated naphthaldehyde and substituted anilines in good yields. We explored compound methyl-chromenoquinoline (MCQ) in detail for its optical properties using Time-dependent density-functional theory (TD-DFT) and experimental studies. The conjugated-polymer (CP) Poly[(9,9-dioctylfluor enyl-2,7-diyl)-co-(2,5-p-xylene)] or [(ADS145UV or PFOPX)] was studied as donor. The TD-DFT implied that MCQ is a fluorescent compound with well-defined highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) structure at -5.327 eV and -1.836 eV, respectively, with an energy gap of 3.49 eV in toluene captivity. The TD-DFT-based model and experimental study showed an energy gap of 3.326 eV and 3.351 eV, respectively, and the deviation was 0.025 eV. The experimental studies of MCQ showed solvent-dependent fluorescence peak shifted from 445 +/- 2 nm to 538 +/- 2 nm for dielectric constant ranging from 0.01 (hexane) to 10.2 (water). Despite the good optical properties, MCQ produced a weak laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and not produce amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) to any pump energy of 3rd harmonic from Nd:YAG laser (5 ns, 355 nm). When PFOPX of concentration 500 nM (500 mu L) was added to MCQ of 506 mM (3.5 mL) concentration, the LIF suddenly improved tenfold due to efficient Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) process. At the optimal concentration of PFOPX (670 nM) in MCQ solution, the spectrum changed dramatically. The spectrum has five peaks with a LIF in the background, where peaks around 393.5 nm and 417.3 nm attribute to the oligomer; 438.7 nm attributed to a combined fluorescence of PFOPX and MCQ; 466.4 nm, and 493.1 nm corresponding to MCQ. Analysis shows that the peaks at 440 nm (partly) and 493 nm were ASE from MCQ. (C) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

Structurally interesting chromeno-quinolines were synthesized and the optical properties of methyl-chromenoquinoline (MCQ) were studied using TD-DFT and experimental methods. MCQ exhibited fluorescence and showed solvent-dependent fluorescence peak shifts.