Benzo‐Extended Cycloheptadeffluorene Derivatives with Very Low‐Lying Triplet States

摘要

Abstract Open‐shell non‐alternant polycyclic hydrocarbons (PHs) are attracting increasing attention due to their promising applications in organic spintronics and quantum computing. Herein we report the synthesis of three cycloheptadeffluorene‐based diradicaloids (1–3), by fusion of benzo rings on its periphery for the thermodynamic stabilization, as evidenced by multiple characterization techniques. Remarkably, all of them display a very narrow optical energy gap (Egopt=0.52–0.69?eV) and persistent stability under ambient conditions (t1/2=11.7–33.3?h). More importantly, this new type of diradicaloids possess a low‐lying triplet state with an extremely small singlet–triplet energy gap, as low as 0.002?kcal?mol?1, with a clear dependence on the molecular size. This family of compounds thus offers a new route to create non‐alternant open‐shell PHs with high‐spin ground states, and opens up novel possibilities and insights into understanding the structure–property relationships.