New 1,3,4-oxadiazole containing materials with the effective leading substituents: The electrochemical properties, optical absorptions, and the electronic structures

The electrochemical and optical absorption properties as well as the thermal stabilities of a series of 1,3,4-oxadiazole dimers 1,3-bis[2-(4-methylphenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazol-5-yl]benzene (OXD-X) and its derivatives with the different alkoxy substituents on the central benzene ring such as O(CH2)n−1CH3 (OXD-An, n = 3, 7, 10, 16), O(CH2)nOC6H5CH3 (OXD-Bn, n = 6), and O(CH2)nOC6H4NNC6H4OCH3 (OXD-Cn, n = 3, 6, 10) are studied. The DSC measurements exhibit dramatically elevated glass transition temperatures for OXD-X and OXD-An (120–245 °C) in contrast to the well-known PBD (∼60 °C), indicating the better thermal stabilities. From OXD-X to OXD-An, OXD-Bn or OXD-Cn, the cyclic voltammograms and UV–vis absorption spectroscopy display significant variation, in which the later three species show additional lower energy absorptions at λ > 330 nm compared with OXD-X and particularly, both of OXD-Bn and OXD-Cn display an oxidation peak at ∼+1.0 V and two successive redox reactions occur for OXD-Cn. Theoretically, the B3LYP/6-31g calculations explore that these extraordinary properties are due to the influence of the substituents on the benzene ring to the frontier molecular orbital distribution, especially the O(CH2)nOC6H4NNC6H4OCH3 groups in OXD-Cn deduce the new pictures of the frontier molecular orbitals, causing the electron-transporting behavior originally happening on the molecular skeleton transferred to the side chain.