photochemistry

Aromaticity Effects on the Profiles of the Lowest Triplet-State Potential-Energy Surfaces for Rotation about the CC Bonds of Olefins with Five-Membered Ring Substituents: An Example of the Impact of Baird's Rule

A density functional theory study on olefins with five-membered monocyclic 4n and 4n+2 π-electron substituents (C4H3X; X=CH+, SiH+, BH, AlH, CH2, SiH2, O, S, NH, and CH−) was performed to assess the connection between the degree of substituent (anti)aromaticity and the profile of the lowest triplet-state (T1) potential-energy surface (PES) for twisting about olefinic CC bonds. It exploited both Hückel’s rule on aromaticity in the closed-shell singlet ground state (S0) and Baird’s rule on aromaticity in the lowest ππ* excited triplet state.