Scaled quantum chemical studies of the structural and vibrational spectra of acetyl coumarin

The solid phase FT-IR and FR-Raman spectra of acetyl coumarin have been recorded in the regions 4000–50 cm⁻¹. The spectra were interpreted with the aid of normal coordinate analysis following full structure optimization and force field calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) and Hartree-Fock (HF) at 6–31G* and 6–311++G** basis sets. The resulting force fields were transformed to internal coordinates, the calculated vibrational frequencies and normal modes were utilized in the assignment of the observed vibrational fundamentals. The measured spectral data were used to refine the vibrational force constants by means of a small number of scaling factors.