Crystal structure, Hirshfeld surface analysis and DFT studies of (E)-1-(4-bromo-phen-yl)-3-(3-fluoro-phen-yl)prop-2-en-1-one

The asymmetric unit of the title halogenated chalcone derivative, C15H10BrFO, contains two independent mol-ecules, both adopting an s-cis configuration with respect to the C=O and C=C bonds. In the crystal, centrosymmetrically related mol-ecules are linked into dimers via inter-molecular hydrogen bonds, forming rings with R 1 2(6), R 2 2(10) and R 2 2(14) graph-set motifs. The dimers are further connected by C-H⋯O inter-actions into chains parallel to [001]. A Hirshfeld surface analysis suggests that the most significant contribution to the crystal packing is by H⋯H contacts (26.3%). Calculations performed on the optimized structure obtained using density functional theory (DFT) at B3LYP with the 6-311 G++(d,p) basis set reveal that the HOMO-LUMO energy gap is 4.12 eV, indicating the suitability of this crystal for optoelectronic and biological applications. The nucleophilic and electrophilic binding site regions are elucidated using the mol-ecular electrostatic potential (MEP).