Hydrogen Bond vs pi-stacking interactions in the p-aminophenol...p-cresol dimer: an experimental an theoretical study

M. C. CAPELLO; F. J. HERNÁNDEZ; M. BROQUIER; C. DEDONDER-LARDEUX; C. JOUVET; G. A. PINO *

PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY CHEMICAL PHYSICS

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY

Lugar: CAMBRIDGE; Año: 2016 vol. 18 p. 31260 - 31267

1463-9076

The gas phase structure and excited state lifetime of the p-aminophenol p-cresol heterodimer havebeen investigated by REMPI and LIF spectroscopy with nanosecond laser pulses and pump?probe experiments with picosecond laser pulses as a model system to study the competition between p?p and H-bonding interactions in aromatic dimers. The excitation is a broad and unstructured band. The excited state of the heterodimer is long lived (2.5 0.5) ns with a very broad fluorescence spectrum red-shifted by 4000 cm1 with respect to the excitation spectrum. Calculations at the MP2/RI-CC2 and DFT-oB97X-D levels indicate that hydrogen-bonded (HB) and p-stacked isomers are almost isoenergetic in the ground state while in the excited state only the p-stacked isomer exists. This suggests that the HB isomer cannot be excited due to negligible Franck?Condon factors and therefore the excitation spectrum is associated with the p-stacked isomer that reaches vibrationally excited states in the S1 state upon vertical excitation. The excited state structure is an exciplex responsible for the fluorescence of the complex. Finally, a comparison was performed between the p-stacked structure observed for the p-aminophenol p-cresolheterodimer and the HB structure reported for the (p-cresol)2 homodimer indicating that the differences are due to different optical properties (oscillator strengths and Franck?Condon factors) of the isomers of both dimers and not to the interactions involved in the ground state.