Colour coding the co-conformations of a [2]rotaxane flip-switch

Fine-tuning the charge transfer chromophores in a series of [2]rotaxane flip-switches yields a unique optical signal (purple colour) for one of the interactions allowing for facile determination of the position of the flip-switch equilibrium.     

From Graftable Biphotonic Chromophores to Water‐Soluble Organic Nanodots for Biophotonics: The Importance of Environmental Effects

The photophysical and two‐photon absorption (TPA) properties of biphotonic chromophores with one or two phenol pendant units were studied and compared with that of a model biphotonic quadrupolar chromophore. A water‐soluble dendritic structure was then synthesized by using the pendant moieties as starting points for the construction of dendritic branches. We show that the polarity of the environment significantly modulates both the fluorescence and the TPA responses of the different chromophoric derivatives. This extends to more subtle effects that involve phenol pendant moieties that were found to act as discrete solvating units and to modify both the photophysics and the TPA response of the chromophore. This demonstrates the high sensitivity of the TPA response of quadrupolar derivatives to minute alterations in the environment. Moreover, the dendritic branches were found to behave as a peculiar cybotactic environment that was able to tune the fluorescence and TPA response of the inner chromophore by creating a polar environment. This reveals a new direction for exploiting such effects by playing on the dendritic architecture (e.g., the nature and shape of the building blocks, the geometry and position of the chromophore) to modulate the TPA responses.     

Triaryl-1,3,5-triazinane-2,4,6-triones (Isocyanurates) Peripherally Functionalized by Donor Groups: Synthesis and Study of Their Linear and Nonlinear Optical Properties

The linear optical (LO) and nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of a series of isocyanurates functionalized by donor arms at the periphery are reported herein. These octupolar derivatives were obtained in a straightforward way from commercial isocyanate derivatives and were fully characterized. Although several of these compounds are known, those that exhibited the largest NLO activities are all new compounds. In terms of second-order activity, several of these derivatives exhibit remarkable activity/transparency tradeoffs. In terms of third-order activity, the longer derivatives with the stronger donor groups (X=NH(2) , NMe(2) , or NPh(2) ) were shown to possess significant two-photon absorption cross sections. These strongly luminescent derivatives exhibit two-photon absorption cross sections up to 410?GM. DFT computations were also conducted to unravel their electronic structures and to rationalize their NLO properties. To our knowledge, the present study is the first concerned with the nonlinear optical properties of these original cyclotrimers.     

Enzymatic resolution of 3-bromo-cyclohept-2-enol: application to the determination of the absolute configuration of diethyl (3-hydroxy-cyclohept-1-enyl)phosphonate

Enzymatic resolution of racemic 3-bromo-cyclohept-2-enol 2 with lipozyme affords enantiomerically pure (S)-(−)-2 whose absolute configuration was determined by chemical correlation, and further allowed an enantioselective synthesis of (S)-(+)-diethyl (3-hydroxy-cyclohept-1-enyl)phosphonate 1.     

Local Existence of Analytical Solutions to an Incompressible Lagrangian Stochastic Model in a Periodic Domain

We consider an incompressible kinetic Fokker Planck equation in the flat torus, which is a simplified version of the Lagrangian stochastic models for turbulent flows introduced by S.B. Pope in the context of computational fluid dynamics. The main difficulties in its treatment arise from a pressure type force that couples the Fokker Planck equation with a Poisson equation which strongly depends on the second order moments of the fluid velocity. In this paper we prove short time existence of analytic solutions in the one-dimensional case, for which we are able to use techniques and functional norms that have been recently introduced in the study of a related singular model.     

Octupolar merocyanine dyes: a new class of nonlinear optical chromophores

A set of new octupolar merocyanine chromophores was designed and synthesized. These compounds were prepared from the reaction of 1,3,5-triformyl-2,4,6-trihydroxybenzene with heterocyclic nucleophiles. Octupolar dyes were formed exclusively in their open-dye form. The one- and two-photon-absorption spectra of the dyes consist of two bands: The long-wavelength band in the two-photon absorption spectrum (a few hundreds GM above 1000?nm) matches well with the intense, long-wavelength-absorption band that is located in the visible region in the linear spectrum. Interestingly, an additional, much-more-intense TPA band in the NIR region is observed at higher energy, which corresponds to a weakly allowed one-photon electronic transition. Changing the peripheral heterocyclic moieties allows tuning of the optical properties to approach the cyanine limit (i.e., polymethine state), thus resulting in a red-shift of the low-energy one-photon-absorption band as well as to the rise of an intense two-photon-absorption band in the NIR region. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first synthesis and TPA characterization of octupolar merocyanine chromophores with typical low-bond-length alternation.     

Electrostatic fields E(r) created in the vicinity of cluster-modelled nickel surfaces, using DFT densities

On the basis of self-consistent electronic densities obtained via Density Functional Theory (DFT), we have evaluated the magnitude of the electrostatic fields created in the vicinity of several nickel clusters, from analytically computed electrostatic potentials. These preliminary results are used to examine whether, and how, long-range interactions with metallic surfaces may help an approaching molecule to discriminate one surface site or another.     

Chiral discrimination of dansyl-amino-acid enantiomers on teicoplanin phase: sucrose-perchlorate anion dependence

The chiral recognition mechanism for a series of d,l-dansyl-amino-acids (test solutes) on a teicoplanin stationary phase was investigated in reversed phase liquid chromatography (RPLC). The effect of both a surface tension modifier (sucrose) and a chaotropic agent (perchlorate anion) on the enantiomeric separation was studied by varying their concentration, c, in the mobile phase. The thermodynamic data supported the fact that the sucrose molecule acted only on the hydrophobic part of the interaction teicoplanin/dansyl-amino-acid and not on the specific chiral part. It was demonstrated that the enhancement of the separation factor observed as the perchlorate salt concentration increased in the mobile phase was enthalpically controlled owing to stereoselective bonding interactions. Such behavior was used to optimize the chromatographic conditions for separation of dansyl-amino-acids on teicoplanin.     

Solid-phase syntheses of 6-arylpyridazin-3(2H)-ones

The 3-chloropyridazine moiety was immobilized on a Wang resin, using two different methodologies. The first of these involved direct nucleophilic substitution of 3,6-dichloropyridazine with the alcoholate of Wang resin. The experimental conditions were optimized. The second method involved a Mitsunobu reaction between the Wang resin and 6-chloropyridazin-3-ol during which a problem of regioselectivity was observed. The so-obtained chloropyridazine-containing resins were subsequently reacted with various arylboronic acids under Suzuki conditions. Acid cleavage yielded 6-arylpyridazin-3(2H)-ones with high chemical purity.