Conformational States of the Spiropyran Molecule

Abstract

The form of the potential surface of the ground state was investigated on the basis of indoline spiropyran. As a result of this work the rotamers of an open-ring form of the spiropyran molecule were discovered, and the existence of the most probable rotamers was justified. The 3D potential surface of the ground state of the spiropyran molecule was built. The route of the isomerization of the molecule was discovered and values of barriers for this reaction were found. The part of the isomerization route that is responsible for changing the hybridization of spiroatom from sp3 to sp2 was found.