Substitution Effect on Electronic Transition of Bi-substituted Benzyl-type Radicals: Symmetric Substitution

A substitution effect on the electronic transition of bi-substituted benzyl-type radicals was discovered. The origin of the electronic D1 → D0 transition of benzyl-type radicals was red-shifted upon substitution to the benzene ring. For symmetric bi-substituted benzyl-type radicals, it was found that the predicted shift obtained from mono-substituted benzyl-type radicals agreed well with the observation. The reason for this agreement is believed that the substituent contributes independently to the electronic energy. The substitution effect was applied to the symmetric bi-substituted difluoro-, dichloro- and dimethylbenzyl radicals.