Dibenzonaphthyridinones: Heterocycle-to-Heterocycle Synthetic Strategies and Photophysical Studies

A heterocycle-to-heterocycle strategy is presented for the preparation of highly fluorescent and solvatochromic dibenzo­naph­thyridinones (DBNs) via methodology that leads to the formation of a tertiary, spiro-fused carbon center. A linear correlation between the results of photophysical experiments and time dependent density functional theory calculations was observed for the λmax of excitation for DBNs with varying electronic character.