Substituent Effects on the Absorption and Fluorescence Properties of Anthracene

Substitution can be used to efficiently tune the photophysical properties of chromophores. In this study, we examine the effect of substituents on the absorption and fluorescence properties of anthracene. The effects of mono-, di-, and tetrasubstitution of electron-donating and -withdrawing functional groups were explored. In addition, the influence of a donor-acceptor substituent pair and the position of substitution were investigated. Eleven functional groups were varied on positions 1, 2, and 9 of anthracene, and on position 6 of 2-methoxyanthracene and 2-carboxyanthracene. Moreover, the donor-acceptor pair NH₂/CO₂H was added on different positions of anthracene for additional studies of doubly substituted anthracenes. Finally, we looked into quadruple substitutions on positions 1,4,5,8 and 2,3,6,7. Vertical excitation energies and oscillator strengths were computed using density functional theory with the hybrid CAM-B3LYP functional and 6-311G(d) basis set. Correlations between the excitation energies or oscillator strengths of the low-lying bright L_a state and the Hammett sigma parameter, σ_p⁺, of the substituents were examined. The energy is red-shifted for all cases of substitution. Oscillator strengths increase when substituents are placed along the direction of the transition dipole moment of the bright L_a excited state. Substitution of long chain conjugated groups significantly increases the oscillator strength in comparison to the cases for other substituents. In addition, the results of quadruply substituted geometries reveal symmetric substitution at the 1,4,5,8 positions significantly increases the oscillator strength and can lower the band gap compared to that of the unsubstituted anthracene molecule by up to 0.5 eV.