Poly(dithienylethene‐alt‐1,4‐divinylenephenylene)s: Increasing the Molecular Weights in Diarylethene Photochromic Polymers

Abstract

Thermally irreversible, photochromic dithienylethene‐alt‐dihexyloxyphenylenevinylene and dithienylethene‐alt‐didodecyloxyphenylenevinylene copolymers have been synthesized via the Horner and Wittig reactions, respectively. Both polymers are photochromic in solution and in the solid state. Electronic spectra show that the materials are highly conjugated in both states and the large π‐delocalization along the main chain when the diarylethene moiety is in the closed form gives a decrease of the ring‐opening quantum yield. The increase in molecular weight relative to other backbone dithienylethene polymers allows the preparation of good quality films without the use of supporting polymer matrices; this is an important achievement for the technological application of these photochromic materials.

Photochromic bisthienylethene as multi-function switches

“…Photochromic copolymers are the most promising solid materials in practical application because of their excellent rotating spread film property and photochromism in solid films. 18 Various types of one-component photochromic copolymers have been synthesized by radical polymerization, 19 oxidation polymerization, 20 Wittig polycondensation 21 and ring-opening metathesis polymerization. 22,23 These photochromic copolymers show excellent photochromic properties in solution.…”

New developments in photochromic materials showing large change in the refractive index

“…Among the different families of photochromic materials, the diarylethenes hold an important role due to their good thermal stability and photochromic efficiency 7 and they were proposed to be used in many devices 8, 9 . Since the optical quality and the content of active molecule strongly affect the performance of the optical devices, attention was paid to synthesize backbone photochromic polymers [10][11][12][13][14][15] , which allow to make films without any optical Here it is reported the characteristics of a diarylethene polyester in terms of photochromic properties, optical properties and device realization.…”

Photochemical tuning of light emission in a conjugated polymer containing norbornadiene units in the main chain

“…Shortening of the conjugation length by addition reactions to double bonds in poly(arylenevinylene) polymer thin films has been recently proposed as a chemical methodology for colour patterning. 4 Cis-trans photo-isomerization in poly(arylenevinylene), 5 and photocyclization of dithienylethene polymers 6 are photoinduced processes which could be exploited for tuning the light emission of conjugated materials.…”