Optical and electro-optical properties of silicon-contaning thiophene derivatives of star-shaped and dendritic structure

Star-thiophene derivatives with a silicon atom as the branching center were investigated by absorption spectroscopy and electro-optical Kerr effect in solutions at variations in a number and chemical structure of branches. The star-shaped oligomers were compared with dendritic analogues containing silicon atoms at the points of branching. It is shown that thiophene-containing moieties determine both spectral and electrooptical properties of the molecules. Molecular parameters of the star-shaped oligomers of various structure vary identically with increasing the number of branches. The absorption of star-shaped oligomers is additive due to the autonomy of the absorption of radiation by the separate branches. For dendritic molecules the additive nature of the absorption is kept, but their electro-optical properties are independent of a generation number. It was shown that the latter is a consequence of the manifestation by dendrimers of deformation flexibility, which is not peculiar to the starshaped derivatives.