Oxazines: A New Class of Second-Order Nonlinear Optical Switches

A combined experimental-theoretical investigation has revealed that oxazine-based compounds are multiaddressable, multistate, and multifunctional molecular switches exhibiting contrasts of both linear and second-order nonlinear optical properties. The switching properties are particularly large when the substituent is a donor group. In this study, the cleavage of the C-O bond at the junction of the indole and oxazine cycles (of the closed a forms) is acido-triggered, leading to an open form (b⁺) characterized by larger first hyperpolarizabilities (β_HRS) and smaller excitation energies than in the closed form. These results are confirmed and interpreted utilizing ab initio calculations that have been carried out on a broad set of compounds to unravel the role of the substituent. With respect to acceptor groups, oxazines bearing donor groups are characterized not only by larger β_HRS and β_HRS contrast ratios but also by smaller excitation energies, larger opening-induced charge transfer, and reduction of the bond length alternation, as well as smaller Gibbs energies of the opening reaction. Compared to protonated open forms (b⁺), calculations on the zwitterionic open forms (b) have pointed out similarities in the long-wavelength UV/vis absorption spectra, whereas their β_HRS values might differ strongly as a function of the substituent. Indeed, the open forms present two NLOphores, the indoleninium-substituent entity and the nitrophenol (present in the protonated open form, b⁺) or nitrophenolate (present in the zwitterionic open form, b) moiety. Then, nitrophenolate displays a larger first hyperpolarizability than nitrophenol and the β tensor of the two entities might reinforce or cancel each other.