Qian et al.
JOCArticle
FIGURE 1. PBIs 1, S-PBI 2, and N-PBIs 3 and 4.
been only a few reports on strained aromatic polycycles
including heteroatoms such as S and N in their frameworks.5
Perylene-3,4:9,10-tetracarboxylbisimides 1 (PBIs) have
been intensively investigated primarily in industry as dyes
and pigments6 and recently in electronics and optoelectro-
nics as important n-type materials.7 The extensive interest in
PBIs is due to the versatile optical and electrochemical
properties, the controllable structures and properties, the
chemical and thermal stabilities, and the high electron
affinity.8 The two different types of positions in the aromatic
core of PBIs, namely the bay regions and the nonbay regions,
are depicted in Figure 1. Modifications of PBIs have been
concentrated on the bay regions, whose chemical substitu-
tion can dramatically alter the optical and electronic proper-
ties. Notably, substituents in bay regions can twist the
perylene unit dihedrally out of plane, leading to the dihedral
angle being easily tunable from 0° to 37°.9 Despite this
documented flexibility in the bay region, PBIs with curved
π-structures have been rarely explored. The incorporation of
bowl-shaped structures to n-type chromophores can signifi-
cantly change intermolecular interactions, chemical and
physical properties, and possible applications.
pyrrole rings, respectively. However, the crystal structure of
2 previously reported by our group reveals a planar perylene
˚
core probably because of the long length of C-S bonds (1.78 A)
and, as a consequence, the weak ring strain.10 In contrast
with 2, the DFT optimized structure of 3 shows a deeply
bowl-shaped configuration (see Figure S6 in the Supporting
Information) due to the strong strain resulting from the short
˚
length of C-N bonds (1.41 A). We expected to synthesize 3
by the Buchwald-Hartwig reaction11 of tetrahalogen-PBIs
with an amine. The only observed product was 4 instead of 3
(Supporting Information), indicating the high energy needed
for simultaneously forming two strained pyrrole rings in bay
regions. These findingsdemonstratethe difficulty in preparing
a PBI bowl by modifying the bay regions, suggesting that an
extended aromatic system may be necessary for flexibility and
to reduce the energy costs of making the five-membered ring.
The influence of nonbay regions on structures and proper-
ties of 1 has been neglected mainly because of the difficulty in
modulating PBIs in nonbay regions. Recently, we reported
the CuI-mediated synthesis of di(perylene bisimides) 5
(diPBIs),12 which is the first example demonstrating the
participation of the C-H bond in the nonbay region to the
reaction, and thus it can be regarded as an ideal platform for
investigating the effect of nonbay regions on structures. It
has been demonstrated, by the computed structures of 5 and
their extended trimers, that the steric congestion between H
atoms in the nonbay region and the adjacent O atoms (blue
label in 5 shown in Figure 2) twists the aromatic core to an
out-of-plane configuration.13 Accordingly, we modified our
strategy for the design of PBI bowls, first by introducing the
steric congestion in nonbay regions through the synthesis of
diPBIs and second by including the strained heterorings
in bay regions. Herein we present the synthesis of S- and
N-heterocyclic annelated diPBIs 6 and 7, and confirm their
doubly bowl-shaped structures by single-crystal X-ray struc-
ture analysis and temperature-dependent 1H NMR. Further-
more, the influence of heteroatoms on the bowl curvature,
the optical signatures, and electrochemical properties have
been experimentally determined and rationalized on the
basis of quantum-chemically computed atomic structures,
electronic properties, and optical signatures.
As numerous examples prove the importance of five-
membered rings in the formation of bowl-shaped structures,
our initial strategy for PBI bowls was based on introducing
heteroring strain into two bay regions and using the stress
strain to form curved structures. Thus, we attempted to
prepare 2 and 3 by the incorporation of two thiophene and
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6276 J. Org. Chem. Vol. 74, No. 16, 2009