Spectroscopic and Theoretical Studies on Conformational Stability of Benzyl Methyl Ether.
Yuji YamadaKohei NishizonoMai KanoSatomi KorekiNoriyoshi NagahoraYoshinori NibuPublished in: The journal of physical chemistry. A (2023)
Conformer-selected electronic and vibrational spectra of benzyl methyl ether and its terminal methyl group-substituted derivative in a supersonic jet have been measured using ultraviolet (UV)-UV hole burning and fluorescence-detected infrared spectroscopy to investigate the conformational stability of flexible molecules. Various quantum chemical calculations as well as experimental observations reveal the coexistence of three conformers with different CCOC dihedral angles and side-chain orientations relative to the benzene ring plane. Vibrational analysis in the excited state with time-dependent density functional theory and IR simulations containing anharmonic coupling sufficiently reproduce the experimental results, suggesting that these three conformers can be distinguished into one gauche -conformer and two trans -ones with respect to the CCOC dihedral angle. We also observe that the gauche conformer exhibits higher-frequency CH 2 modes. The natural bond orbital analysis indicates that this phenomenon is attributed to the electron delocalization from the non-bonding orbitals and the C-O orbitals associated with the neighboring oxygen atom, which leads to a conformer dependence of the methylene C-H bond strength.