Overall 21 imidazole-based chromophores have been synthesized and fully characterized. The imidazole core was systematically substituted with donors (NMe(2) and OMe) and acceptors (NO(2) and CN groups) additionally separated from the imidazole by pi-spacers such as 1,4-phenylen, styryl or thiophen-2-yl in order to finely tune their intramolecular charge transition. The target chromophores were further investigated by UV/Vis spectroscopy as potentially NLO-active compounds.
Imidazole as a central π-linkage in Y-shaped push–pull chromophores
Twelve imidazole based Y-shaped push–pullchromophores have been designed, synthesised and fully characterised featuring 4,5-bis(N,N-dimethylanilino)imidazole as a donor moiety, a systematically enlarged π-linker and nitro and cyano groups as acceptors. The synthesised push–pull systems have been studied by electrochemistry, UV/Vis and IR spectroscopy and nonlinearoptical properties have been calculated