The vibrational studies and theoretical investigation of structure, electronic and non-linear optical properties of Sudan III [1-{[4-(phenylazo) phenyl]azo}-2-naphthalenol]

Sudan III [1-{[4-(phenylazo) phenyl]azo}-2-naphthalenol] is non-ionic fat-soluable dye used as an additive in gasoline, oils and plastics. The molecular structure, molecular electrostatic potential, NBO analysis, linear and non-linear optical properties of Sudan III have been investigated using density functional theory (DFT) calculation with 6-311G(d,p) basis set. To investigate the tautomeric stability, optimization calculations at B3LYP/6-311G(d,p) level were performed for the azo (OH) and hydrazo (NH) forms of the title compound. The calculated first-order hyperpolarizability value is comparable with the reported values and attractive object for future studies of non-linear optics. FT-IR (4000–400 cm−1) and FT-Raman (3500–50 cm−1) spectra of Sudan III have been recorded. The vibrational frequencies determined experimentally are compared with those obtained theoretically and a vibrational assignment and analysis of the fundamental modes of the compound is performed. The scaled frequencies resulted in good agreement with the observed spectral patterns.