ABSTRACT
Reported are the first examples of Friedel-Crafts reactions used to prepare 3,6-diacylphenanthrenes. 9,10-Dimethoxyphenanthrene gives its 3,6-diacetyl derivative in good yield and in large amounts. The ketone's triisopropylsilyl enol ether when combined with 1, 4-benzoquinone forms a [7]helicenebisquinone. This bisquinone's reduction product, a bishydroquinone, when combined with methanolic HCl gives the [7]helicene whose peripheral side chains are all methoxyls but whose interior hydroxyls remain. The diastereomeric (1S)-(-)-camphanates can be separated by crystallization. Their structures, analyzed by X-ray diffraction, demonstrate that the camphanates' lactone functions point away from the ring system when the helicene has the (P) configuration and toward it when the helicene has the (M) configuration. This is because the camphanates' O=C-C-O dihedral angles are, as expected, close to 0 degrees in the former and close to 180 degrees in the latter. Other derivatives of 3,6-diacetylphenanthrene and of [7]helicenebisquinone are prepared, and the crystal structure of one of the latter is analyzed.
ABSTRACT
The second-order nonlinear optical coefficients associated with chirality differ in sign for the two mirror-image forms (enantiomers) of a chiral material. Structures comprised of alternating stacks of the enantiomers can therefore be used for quasi-phase-matched frequency conversion, as we demonstrate here by second-harmonic generation from Langmuir-Blodgett films of a helicenebisquinone. Such structures could lead to new types of frequency converters in which both the second-order nonlinear response and quasi-phase-matching arise from the chirality of a material rather than its polar order.
ABSTRACT
The questions considered in this paper are why, as agents for resolving helicenols, camphanate esters are particularly effective, and why, in all 19 examples studied, when the (1S)-camphanates of (P)- and (M)-helicen-1-ols are chromatographed on silica gel, the former has the lower R(f)(). Models are proposed for the favored conformations of the esters, and to support the models, evidence is provided from five X-ray diffraction analyses and four ROESY analyses supplemented by molecular mechanics calculations. The essential discovery is that, presumably to avoid a steric interaction between a methyl on the camphanate's bridge and the helicene skeleton, the O=CCO conformation is anti-periplanar in (M)-helicenol camphanates and syn-periplanar in (P)-helicenol camphanates. In the former, the lactone carbonyl points toward the helicene ring system, and in the latter, it points away.
ABSTRACT
A new approach to second-order nonlinear optical (NLO) materials is reported, in which chirality and supramolecular organization play key roles. Langmuir-Blodgett films of a chiral helicene are composed of supramolecular arrays of the molecules. The chiral supramolecular organization makes the second-order NLO susceptibility about 30 times larger for the nonracemic material than for the racemic material with the same chemical structure. The susceptibility of the nonracemic films is a respectable 50 picometers per volt, even though the helicene structure lacks features commonly associated with high nonlinearity. Susceptibility components that are allowed only by chirality dominate the second-order NLO response.
