Computational investigation of bioactive 2,3-diaryl quinolines using DFT method: FT- IR, NMR spectra, NBO, NLO, HOMO-LUMO transitions, and quantum-chemical properties

•Optimized geometries of bioactive fluorine-containing 2,3-diarylquinolines (1a–c) were obtained using the B3LYP/6–311++G (d, p) basis set.•The values of chemical hardness (n), electronegativity (χ) and electrophilicity (ω) and HOMO, LUMO energies were calculated.•The linear polarizability (α) and the first order hyperpolarizability (β) values were determined.•Compounds with strong optical characteristics in multiple directions were discovered through NLO research.•The NBO analysis revealed that there are strong delocalization interactions between Lewis bonding and antibonding orbitals.