Intense Molar Circular Dichroism in Fully Conjugated All-Carbon Macrocyclic 1,3-Butadiyne Linked pseudo-meta [2.2]Paracyclophanes

The synthetic access to macrocyclic molecular topologies with interesting photophysical properties has greatly improved thanks to the successful implementation of organic and inorganic corner units. Based on recent reports, we realized pseudo-meta [2.2]paracyclophanes (PCPs) might serve as optimal corner units for constructing 3D functional materials, owing to their efficient electronic communication, angled substituents and planar chirality. Herein, we report the synthesis, characterization and optical properties of three novel all-carbon enantiopure macrocycles bearing three to five pseudo-meta PCPs linked by 1,3-butadiyne units. The macrocycles were obtained by a single step from enantiopure literature known dialkyne pseudo-meta PCP and were unambiguously identified and characterized by state-of-the-art spectroscopic methods. By comparing the optical properties to relevant reference compounds, we show that the pseudo-meta PCP subunit effectively elongates the conjugated system throughout the macrocyclic backbone, such that already the smallest macrocycle consisting of only three subunits reaches an astounding polymer-like conjugation length. Additionally, we show that the chiral pseudo-meta PCPs induce remarkable chiroptical response in the respective macrocycles, which increases non-linearly with the number of PCP units to unprecedented high molar dichroism values for all-carbon macrocycles of up to 1335 L mol-1 cm-1.