Hexabenzocoronene–Benzimidazole Hybrid Architectures and Faraday Rotation of the First Hexabenzocoronene–Phthalocyanine

Abstract

Abstract The synthesis and characterization of a first example of a Ni‐phthalocyanine (Pc) hybrid molecule carrying four hexa‐ peri‐ hexabenzocoronene (HBC) substituents and of three HBC‐benzimidazole derivatives is reported. These π‐electron rich chromophores exhibit a high molar absorption coefficient with extended absorption up to 460 nm. Particularly, HBC‐Pc absorbs throughout most of the UV–vis range with the Pc Q‐band located at 672 nm. This enables its investigation as a Faraday rotator where it displayed a remarkable Verdet constant of −1.4 × 10 5  deg T −1 m −1 at 700 nm assigned to Faraday A‐term activity. Electrochemical measurements supported by DFT calculations elucidated the electronic structure of the molecules together with excited state molecular orbital analysis using TDDFT. Here, HBC‐Pc showed a HOMO/LUMO gap considerably lower than the other HBC‐based compounds due to the introduction of the Pc scaffold.