A new family of pi-conjugated delocalized biradicals: Electronic structures of 1,4-bis(2,5-diphenylimidazol-4-ylidene)cyclohexa-2,5-diene

A new family of pi-conjugated delocalized biradical compound is developed. The solution of 1,4-bis(2,5-diphenylimidazol-4-ylidene)cyclohexa-2,5-diene shows the ESR signal consisting of a moderately broad unresolved line, Delta H(pp) approximately 1 mT, at room temperature. The presence of the thermal equilibrium between a triplet biradical state and a singlet state is confirmed by the ESR measurements, and the spin concentration is determined as 7.90 x 10(21) spin/mol at 300 K. The spin concentration can also be controlled by modifying the molecular planarity. Moreover, the unrestricted DFT/B3LYP calculations suggest the biradical character of the singlet ground state, and the modulation of the energy gap between the singlet state and the triplet state is investigated from the theoretical point of view. Controlling the equilibrium between a diamagnetic state and a paramagnetic state will provide significant progress in the field of biradical chemistry, and the materials with the biradical character in a ground state will lead to a novel development of molecular-based organic magnets.