Reducing Diastereomorphous Bis(phosphane oxide) Atropisomers to One Atropisomerically Pure Diphosphane: A New Ligand and a Novel Ligand-Preparation Design.

1,1'-Biphenyl-2,2'-diphosphanes with an achiral bridge spanning C-5 and C-5' form atropisomers that are enantiomers. Accessing them in an atropisomerically pure form requires resolving a racemic mixture thereof or of a bis(phosphane oxide) precursor. 1,1'-Biphenyl-2,2'-diphosphanes with a homochiral bridge spanning C-5 and C-5' form atropisomers that are diastereomers. We synthesized the first compound of this kind 1) atropselectively and 2) under thermodynamic control-seemingly a first-time exploit in diphosphane synthesis. The selectivity-inducing step was a high-temperature reduction of two non-interconverting bis(phosphane oxide) atropisomers (60:40 mixture). It furnished the desired diphosphane atropisomerically pure (and atropconvergently because the yield was 67 %). This diphosphane proved worthwhile in Tsuji-Trost allylations, the Hayashi addition of phenylboronic acid to cyclohexenone, and the asymmetric hydrogenation of methyl acetoacetate (up to 95 % yield and 95 % ee).

A theoretical description of charge reorganization energies in molecular organic P-type semiconductors.

Charge transport properties of materials composed of small organic molecules are important for numerous optoelectronic applications. A material's ability to transport charges is considerably influenced by the charge reorganization energies of the composing molecules. Hence, predictions about charge-transport properties of organic materials deserve reliable statements about these charge reorganization energies. However, using density functional theory which is mostly used for the predictions, the computed reorganization energies depend strongly on the chosen functional. To gain insight, a benchmark of various density functionals for the accurate calculation of charge reorganization energies is presented. A correlation between the charge reorganization energies and the ionization potentials is found which suggests applying IP-tuning to obtain reliable values for charge reorganization energies. According to benchmark investigations with IP-EOM-CCSD single-point calculations, the tuned functionals provide indeed more reliable charge reorganization energies. Among the standard functionals, ωB97X-D and SOGGA11X yield accurate charge reorganization energies in comparison with IP-EOM-CCSD values. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Benchmarking Ground-State Geometries and Vertical Excitation Energies of a Selection of P-Type Semiconducting Molecules with Different Polarity.

A benchmark of TD-DFT, wave function-based and semiempiric methods was performed for the geometries and excitation energies of diverse molecular organic semiconductors with varying polarity. Geometries were benchmarked by means of RMSD (root-mean-square deviation) values and MAE (maximum absolute error) values of geometric parameters specific for the electronic structure of the respective molecule. MS-CASPT2 calculations were used to benchmark excitation energies with respect to a confidence interval around the values obtained with CASPT2. The effect of spin-component scaling (SCS) on several wave function-based methods was thoroughly evaluated.

Ansa-bridged bis(benzene) titanium complexes.

Taking advantage of an improved synthesis of [Ti(η(6) -C6 H6 )2 ], we report here the first examples of ansa-bridged bis(benzene) titanium complexes. Deprotonation of [Ti(η(6) -C6 H6 )2 ] with nBuLi in the presence of N,N,N',N'',N''-pentamethyldiethylenetriamine (pmdta) leads to the corresponding 1,1'-dilithio salt [Ti(η(6) -C6 H5 Li)2 ]⋅pmdta that enables the preparation of the first one- and two-atom-bridged complexes by simple salt metathesis. The ansa complexes were fully characterized (NMR spectroscopy, UV/Vis spectroscopy, elemental analysis, and X-ray crystallography) and further studied electrochemically and computationally. Moreover, [Ti(η(6) -C6 H6 )2 ] is found to react with the Lewis base 1,3-dimethylimidazole-2-ylidene (IMe) to give the bent sandwich complex [Ti(η(6) -C6 H6 )2 (IMe)].

Electron Delocalization in Reduced Forms of 2-(BMes2)pyrene and 2,7-Bis(BMes2)pyrene.

Reduction of 2-(BMes2)pyrene (B1) and 2,7-bis(BMes2)pyrene (B2) gives rise to anions with extensive delocalization over the pyrenylene bridge and between the boron centers at the 2- and 2,7-positions, the typically unconjugated sites in the pyrene framework. One-electron reduction of B2 gives a radical anion with a centrosymmetric semiquinoidal structure, while two-electron reduction produces a quinoidal singlet dianion with biradicaloid character and a relatively large S0-T1 gap. These results have been confirmed by cyclic voltammetry, X-ray crystallography, DFT/CASSCF calculations, NMR, EPR, and UV-vis-NIR spectroscopy.

CAST: a new program package for the accurate characterization of large and flexible molecular systems.

The presented program package, Conformational Analysis and Search Tool (CAST) allows the accurate treatment of large and flexible (macro) molecular systems. For the determination of thermally accessible minima CAST offers the newly developed TabuSearch algorithm, but algorithms such as Monte Carlo (MC), MC with minimization, and molecular dynamics are implemented as well. For the determination of reaction paths, CAST provides the PathOpt, the Nudge Elastic band, and the umbrella sampling approach. Access to free energies is possible through the free energy perturbation approach. Along with a number of standard force fields, a newly developed symmetry-adapted perturbation theory-based force field is included. Semiempirical computations are possible through DFTB+ and MOPAC interfaces. For calculations based on density functional theory, a Message Passing Interface (MPI) interface to the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-accelerated TeraChem program is available. The program is available on request.