Quantum chemical studies on structural, spectroscopic, nonlinear optical, and thermodynamic properties of the 1,2,4-triazole compound

Abstract In this study, the structure of 4-[4-(diethylamino)-benzylideneamino]-5-benzyl-2H-1,2,4-triazol-3(4H)-one (DBT) was examined through spectroscopic and theoretical analyses. In this respect, the geometrical, vibrational frequency, 1H and 13C-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) chemical shifts, thermodynamic, hyperpolarizability, and electronic properties including the highest occupied molecular orbital–lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (HOMO–LUMO) energies of DBT as a potential non-linear optical (NLO) material were investigated using density functional theory at the B3LYP level with the 6-311G basis set. 1H and 13C-NMR chemical shifts of DBT with the gauge-invariant atomic orbital and continuous set of gauge transformation methods (in the solvents) were estimated, and the computed chemical shift values displayed excellent alignment with observed ones. Time-dependent density-functional theory (TD-DFT) calculations with the integral equation formalism polarizable continuum model within various solvents and gas phases in the ground state were used to evaluate UV-vis absorption and fluorescence emission wavelengths. Thermodynamic parameters including enthalpy, heat capacity, and entropy for DBT were also calculated at various temperatures. Moreover, calculations of the NLO were carried out to obtain the title compound’s electric dipole moment and polarizability properties. To illustrate the effect of the theoretical method on the spectroscopic and structural properties of DBT, experimental data of structural and spectroscopic parameters were used. The correlational analysis results were observed to indicate a strong relationship between the experimental and theoretical results. Graphical abstract