Here,
we have studied, with a combined experimental and computational
approach, the effect of the crystal environment and aggregation on
the electronic properties of Pigment Red 179, which affect both its
color and optical energy gap. Spectra acquired in the near-infrared
and visible range of energies suggest that this molecule is indeed
a “cool” dye, which can be employed as a red pigment
that provides effective color coverage to different substrates without
contributing to their heating during light irradiation. Spectra acquired
on different polymer mixtures at different pigment concentrations
(i.e., 2.5–10 wt %) suggest that absorption features depend
on chromophoric arrangements promoted by the strong intermolecular
π–π interactions. Calculations, performed at the
time-dependent density functional theory level, allowed to both attribute
the nature of the electronic transitions causing the observed spectra
involved and understand the effect of the environment. Indeed, the
visible spectra of the pigment is dominated by two localized transitions,
with negligible charge transfer for both a dye monomer and dimer either
in vacuum or acetonitrile solution. Instead, models including the
crystal environment of the pigment show the presence of a high-wavelength
S1 ← S0 charge transfer transition between
two adjacent molecules, in quantitative agreement with the experimental
absorption energy of the crystal pigment.