Facile, Regioselective Synthesis of Highly Solvatochromic Thiophene-Spaced N-Alkylpyridinium Dicyanomethanides for Second-Harmonic Generation

The facile and clean synthesis of a novel class of highly solvatochromic chromophores 1 is reported. Compounds 1 are push-pull systems containing a negatively charged dicyanomethanide as a donor group and a positively charged N-alkylpyridinium as an acceptor group. The terminal polar functions are spaced by a thiophene-based moiety containing one or two heterocyclic rings and none, one, or two ethylene bridges. Chromophores 1 have been obtained through a general synthetic scheme involving, as the last step, the 100% regioselective alkylation of the precursor bidentate anions 2, where two competing nucleophilic sites, one neutral at the pyridic nitrogen and one anionic at the carbanionic carbon of the dicyanomethanide group, are present. The unprecedented highly regioselective attack of the alkylating agent onto the neutral pyridic nitrogen rather than the highly charged carbanionic carbon has been also confirmed in the case of the intermolecular competition. Multinuclear (¹³C and ¹⁵N) NMR spectroscopy has been used to investigate the structure and the extent of intramolecular charge transfer in 1, which are shown to exist in the ground state as highly charge-separated zwitterionic systems. Experimental results are discussed and compared with semiempirical (PM3) computations. The solvatochromic response of compounds 1, among the highest ever reported in the literature for similar systems, candidates this class of compounds as very attractive active components of nonlinear optical materials.