Incorporating two different chromophores onto a silicon atom: the crystal structure and photophysical properties of 9-{4-[(9,9-dimethyl-9H-fluoren-2-yl)dimethylsilyl]phenyl}-9H-carbazole.

The crystal structure of the title bifunctional silicon-bridged compound, C(35)H(31)NSi, (I), has been determined. The compound crystallizes in the centrosymmetric space group P2(1)/c. In the crystal structure, the pairs of aryl rings in the two different chromophores, i.e. 9-phenyl-9H-carbazole and 9,9-dimethyl-9H-fluorene, are positioned orthogonally. In the crystal packing, no classical hydrogen bonding is observed. UV-Vis absorption and fluorescence emission spectra show that the central Si atom successfully breaks the electronic conjugation between the two different chromophores, and this was further analysed by density functional theory (DFT) calculations.