Naphthalimide-based triptycenes: synthesis and optoelectronic properties

Abstract

In the past decades, the naphthalimide structure has found application in many areas of chemistry due to its unique photophysical properties. Naphthalimide has two isomers, 1,8-naphthalimide containing a six-membered imide ring and 2,3-naphthalimide containing a five-membered imide ring. The former has been widely investigated while studies on the latter are considerably more rare. On the other hand, naphthalimide can also be regarded as a building block to construct polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which have found wide applications in optical materials. Here we report the synthesis and optoelectronic properties of three 2,3-naphthalimide-based triptycenes. These three triptycene derivatives enrich the family of triptycenes.

Keywords: Diels-Alder reaction; naphthalimide; optoelectronic properties; triptycenes.