Structural, Hirshfeld and DFT studies of conjugated D–π–A carbazole chalcone crystal

A new conjugated carbazole chalcone compound, (E)-3-[4-(9,9a-di­hydro-8aH-carbazol-9-yl)phen­yl]-1-(4-nitro­phen­yl)prop-2-en-1-one (CPNC), C(27)H(18)N(2)O(3), was synthesized using a Claisen–Schmidt condensation reaction. CPNC crystallizes in the monoclinic non-centrosymmetric space group Cc and adopts an s-cis conformation with respect to the ethyl­enic double bonds (C=O and C=C). The crystal packing features C—H⋯O and C—H⋯π inter­actions whose percentage contribution was qu­anti­fied by Hirshfeld surface analysis. Quantum chemistry calculations including geometrical optimization and mol­ecular electrostatic potential (MEP) were analysed by density functional theory (DFT) with a B3LYP/6–311 G++(d,p) basis set.