Nonsymmetric Benzo[a]fused and Thiophene/Thieno[3,2-b]thiophene[b]fused BODIPYs: Synthesis and Photophysical Properties

The fusion of sufficient-electron heterocycle rings into the[a]/[b]-position of the BODIPY core would result in a large redshift wavelength, thus achieving red or near infrared emission. In this paper, we described the synthesis of nonsymmetric benzo[a]fused and thiophene/thieno[3,2-b]thiophene[b]fused BODIPY derivatives 2-3 while containing a reactive site, and then, 4-7 were developed by nucleophilic substitution reactions of 3 with various nucleophilic agents in high yields. X-ray crystallographic analysis of 2-7 revealed that the core structure adopted a planar geometry and pi-pi interactions were observed in the packing structure. BODIPYs 4 and 6-7 displayed a hypochromic shift in the absorption and bathochromic shift in the emission with increasing solvent polarity because of the formation of resonance structures resulting from the change of the C-N distance, which was rationalized by density functional theory (DFT)/time-dependent-DFT calculations.