TDDFT study on the excited‐state hydrogen bonding of N‐(2‐hydroxyethyl)‐1,8‐naphthalimide and N‐(3‐hydroxyethyl)‐1,8‐naphthalimide in methanol solution

The time‐dependent density functional theory method was performed to investigate the excited‐state hydrogen‐bonding dynamics of N‐(2‐hydroxyethyl)‐1,8‐naphthalimide (2a) and N‐(3‐hydroxyethyl)‐1,8‐naphthalimide (3a) in methanol (meoh) solution. The ground and excited‐state geometry optimizations, electronic excitation energies, and corresponding oscillation strengths of the low‐lying electronically excited states for the complexes 2a + 2meoh and 3a + 2meoh as well as their monomers 2a and 3a were calculated by density functional theory and time‐dependent density functional theory methods, respectively. We demonstrated that the three intermolecular hydrogen bonds of 2a + 2meoh and 3a + 2meoh are strengthened after excitation to the S₁ state, and thus induce electronic spectral redshift. Moreover, the electronic excitation energies of the hydrogen‐bonded complexes in S₁ state are correspondingly decreased compared with those of their corresponding monomer 2a and 3a. In addition, the intramolecular charge transfer of the S₁ state for complexes 2a + 2meoh and 3a + 2meoh were theoretically investigated by analysis of molecular orbital. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.