Linear dimer and trimer of anthracene bisimide (ABI) units linked by butadiynylene spacers were synthesized through Hay
coupling of 9,10-diethynyl ABI derivatives. Chain length effects on π-conjugation were experimentally and computationally investigated using DFT. UV-vis spectroscopy revealed that increasing the number of ABI units caused a bathochromic shift of the absorption maxima. Fluorescence emission spectroscopy revealed that these ABI-based oligomers had higher fluorescence quantum yields than those of their anthrylene counterparts, which might be attributed to strong fluorescence properties of the ABI units.
