The crystal structure of 9H-carbazole, C12H9N, (I), has been redetermined at low temperature for use as a reference structure in a comparative study with the structures of 1-nitro-9H-carbazole, C12H8N2O2, (II), and 9-nitrocarbazole, C12H8N2O2, (III). The molecule of (I) has crystallographically imposed mirror symmetry (Z' = 0.5). All three solid-state structures are slightly nonplanar, the dihedral angles between the planes of the arene and pyrrole rings ranging from 0.40 (7)° in (III) to 1.82 (18)° in (II). Nevertheless, a density functional theory (DFT) study predicts completely planar conformations for the isolated molecules. To estimate the influence of nitro-group substitution on aromaticity, the HOMA (harmonic oscillator model of aromaticity) descriptor of π-electron delocalization has been calculated in each case. The HOMA indices for the isolated and solid-state molecules are relatively consistent and decrease in value for aromatic rings that are substituted with a π-electron-withdrawing nitro group. Substitution of the arene ring influences the π-electron delocalization in the ring only weakly, showing strong resistance to a perturbation of its geometry, contrary to what is observed for nitro substitution of the five-membered heterocyclic pyrrole ring. In (II), the molecules are arranged in near-planar dimers connected to each other by strong N-H···O hydrogen bonds that stack parallel to the crystallographic b axis. A similar stacking arrangement is observed in (III), although here the stacked structure is formed by stand-alone molecules.
Keywords: DFT calculations; HOMA index; biological activity; carbazoles; crystal structure; electron-withdrawing effects; molecular electronics.