Structural control of nonadiabatic bond formation: the photochemical formation and stability of substituted 4a,4b-dihydrotriphenylenes.

Nonadiabatic photocyclization makes bonds and is the first step in the photoinduced cyclodehydrogenation of ortho-arenes to yield polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. How molecular structure alters potential-energy landscapes, excited-state dynamics, and stabilities of reactants and intermediates underlies the feasibility of desirable photochemistry. In order to gain insight into these structure-dynamics relationships, we have used femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy (TAS) to examine photoinduced dynamics of 1,2,3-triphenylbenzene (TPB) and ortho-quaterphenyl (OQTP), phenyl-subsituted analogues of ortho-terphenyl (OTP). Dynamics of TPB and OTP are quite similar: TPB exhibits fast (7.4 ps) excited-state decay with concomitant formation and vibrational relaxation of 9-phenyl-dihydrotriphenylene (9-phenyl DHT). In contrast, photoexcited OQTP exhibits multistate kinetics leading to formation of 1-phenyl DHT. Excited-state calculations reveal the existence of two distinct minima on the OQTP S1 surface and, together with photophysical data, support a mechanism involving both direct cyclization by way of an asymmetric structure and indirect cyclization by way of a symmetric quinoid-like minimum. Temperature-dependent nanosecond TAS was utilized to assess the relative stabilities of intermediates, substantiating the observed trend in photochemical reactivity OTP > OQTP > TPB. In total, this work demonstrates how specific structural variations alter the course of the excited-state dynamics and photoproduct stability that underlies desired photochemistry.